


Fragile

by angeleledhwen (kallistei), eledhwen (kallistei)



Series: Sins of the Mother [5]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-07-14
Updated: 2003-08-03
Packaged: 2018-02-06 02:52:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 22
Words: 54,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1841587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kallistei/pseuds/angeleledhwen, https://archiveofourown.org/users/kallistei/pseuds/eledhwen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The aftermath of the kiss, and some other complications. The 'real' sequel to Out of Bounds.</p>
<p>Archiving - originally posted 2003</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter headings are from Elizabeth Barrett Browning's 'Sonnets from the Portuguese'. Writen pre-OotP.  
> Thank you to everyone who helped me out with this – Obscurus, for telling me I could write a better story, and making me do it; Godless Harlot, Medea, Chrome Animagus and Isis for beta duties at various points; and to everyone who commented in rough draft on my LJ.

_VI  
Go from me._

Harry hadn’t realised it, but he must have moved towards Severus in his eagerness to prove his honesty, his utter belief in what he had just said. The movement had left them standing very close, the man glaring down into his eyes. Harry searched his face for something other than the words of cutting denial just uttered. He knew his face was probably showing the mixture of pleading and something close to anger he felt, and made no attempt to conceal it. He had nothing to hide from the man in front of him.

Severus, however,  _was_  hiding something. He knew it. The sheer tightness of the man’s shielding proclaimed it, the studied blankness in his eyes that Harry had not seen there for some time now offering more fuel to the suspicion.

For a split second, he debated the options. He could accept it, walk away. Or he could push Severus just a little bit more; find out if it was really true. Being who he was, he knew there was only one decision he would be able to accept as he finally spoke. "I don’t believe you." He took one more step, closing the distance between them and took the only action he could.

He pushed aside the insistent mental reminder that he’d never done anything quite like this. Before tonight, kisses on the cheek were the closest he’d ever come to what he now planned. Not allowing himself to be talked out of it, even by his own worries, he kissed Severus, shoving a hand into his hair to pull him down to the right level, giving him no choice in the matter.  _Damned man’s too tall to make dramatic gestures comfortable_ , he thought dimly just before their lips met.

After that, he couldn’t think at all, just concentrate on the feeling of having Severus’ mouth against his. It was everything he’d dreamed of – and he had dreamed often in the last few weeks. It was perfection and insanity, fiery heat and slick moisture, and even in his most fevered imaginings he’d never thought that kissing could be anything like this. He closed his eyes so he could feel it better.

Severus gasped against his lips, and he couldn’t help but take advantage of the opening, sweeping his tongue into the older man’s mouth and exploring eagerly, if clumsily. It was hot and wet and wondrous. That was Severus’ tongue stroking his with exquisite carelessness, Severus’ scent of dust and soap surrounding him like a tangible thing, the taste of tea still lingering in both their mouths flavouring it. Tea would always taste of kisses in the future, he suspected.

// _Oh god._ // He couldn’t distinguish whose thought it had been. It didn’t really matter, he decided.  _This_  was all that mattered.

He felt in both body and mind the moment Severus surrendered fully and that long body relaxed against him. The subtle movement gave him a sustained contact that magnified every sensation, warmth down his whole body as the stony barrier of denial in the man’s mind collapsed in acceptance of the undeniable rightness of this. He sensed the balance of the kiss shift a moment before Severus’ tongue invaded his mouth. He let it in gladly, let the man explore as he had. He wasn’t quite sure when their arms had gone around each other, but he was profusely grateful. He just knew that without that support he’d have been a puddle on the floor, albeit an extremely happy one.

// _I love you._ // That thought came from both of them, and he felt a shiver go through him at the realisation. He opened his eyes slowly and sighed into Severus’ mouth, still on his. How long had they stood like this? No matter. He loved him.

Finally they broke apart slightly, breathing harshly. Severus’ eyes were still closed.

"Lily…"

Shock and horror flashed through him, lightning-quick, promptly replaced by sheer burning anger, and not a little hurt.

He couldn’t help or prevent his unconscious reaction, had he even wanted to. His hand came up of its own accord as instinctive rage flared up inside him, and he slapped the man – hard – across one pale cheek before he even knew what he was about to do.

* * *

Severus rocked back on his heels, more from the shock of the blow than the pain, though the blow had been more than painful enough. He could feel it reddening already, stealing the passion-flush from the rest of his face to leave his cheek even paler than usual around the strike. He stared blankly at the boy, not knowing what to say. Not knowing what he  _could_  say.

He was sure he looked just as shocked as Harry did, although he suspected probably without the hurt and anger that diluted the other emotion on the boy’s face. "Fuck you," Harry said in a quiet, deadly voice before he turned on his heel and walked out, trailing almost visible anger, sorrow and injured dignity like a cloak.

Severus stood there for some time after the door closed behind him, questioning the surreal events of the evening. His thoughts and emotions uncharacteristically scattered, he lingered in the same spot Harry had left him, brooding over what it all meant. Wondering which part was right – the conversation, the kiss, the aftermath? – and which was horribly, completely wrong. More even than those, he wondered if there had been anything he could have done differently, and would he have, if he could?

* * *

Harry was practically seething with rage as he stalked out of the dungeons. How  _dare_  he have done such a thing? After a kiss like that, how  _could_  he have said her name? An urge to scream in frustration was rapidly growing in him. Or to punch a wall, claw at one of the smiling portraits, or any one of a thousand possibilities, as long as they gave him some outlet for the multitude of emotions that crowded his head and heart.

It had taken months for them even to become tentative friends, and that only with the ‘help’ of the bond. Had taken weeks after that for him to realise that it wasn’t only friendship he felt, that he couldn’t imagine going through the day without talking to Severus anymore, that he always wanted to be around him. That he wanted to touch, and be touched. Weeks more had been required for him to get up the courage to do something about it and then he had needed to wait for the right moment.

It had been  _right_.

Or at any rate, that’s what he’d thought at the time. But clearly, he’d been quite spectacularly wrong about  _something_. There was a considerable amount of disgust in that thought, both at himself and at Severus, not to mention the whole impossible situation – well, it had turned out to be only too possible, but it was surely impossible to deal with.

More than anything else, the lack of knowledge infuriated and frustrated him. If Severus hadn’t felt the same way about him, he could have at least tried to understand it. Maybe even somehow stayed friends, one way or another managed to convince him that it had all been a joke. Blamed it on the bond, perhaps, done something to ensure that they didn’t destroy six months of truce and friendship with two simple actions and the far too complex feelings that motivated them.  

But Severus had kissed him back. He’d felt what the man felt thrumming through his heart like a drug, and it was not simply friendship. That much he did know. And then he’d said her name and now he had no idea what the situation between them was. Had the feelings he’d sensed all been for her? Had he been imagining Harry was her? Or had they perhaps, even a little, been for him, too?

_He still wants her. He_ ** _lied_** _to me._  Then, of course, he couldn’t get that thought out of his head. Had Severus really lied then? Did that mean he’d been lying about other things too? He could make no sense of the situation, and it wasn’t making his mood any better.

When the first-year he passed in the second-floor corridor gave him a deeply worried look, he realised that he was half-growling. He clamped his lips tightly shut, and increased his pace. He had to get back to the Tower, back to his bed. Then he could shut the curtains, sit in the darkness and try and figure out what came next.

He was not jealous of his own mother, he told himself. It was just… just… Well, he supposed he wasn’t ‘just’ anything, but he didn’t have the words to express what he felt even to himself.

He strode angrily through the common room with barely a sideways glance, not even pausing to acknowledge his friends’ greetings. He hardly noticed that Ron’s attempt to stand in greeting was arrested by the look on his face, or the worried expression that crossed Hermione’s, barely registered her turning to Ron and her concerned murmur. He couldn’t bring himself to care very much at all about either.

When he finally reached the dormitory, he flopped face down onto his bed, which accepted the sudden weight with a protesting whisper of material, and wondered what he could possibly do. He inhaled as deeply as he could considering that his face was crushed into the pillow, smelling the clean, detergent smell. The house-elves must have changed the sheets that morning.

The whirl of emotions had abated not at all during the walk up from the dungeons, anger and frustration still paramount. He slammed his fist into the pillow, fingers clenched desperately tight, feeling the feathers crumple under the pressure. A still optimistic corner of him held on to the forlorn hope that the gesture would relieve a little of the tension that was threatening to spill out in any way he’d let it, some part of his mind still rational enough to choose it, rather than the wall, as his target.  

His eyes prickled, tears threatening to overwhelm the little control he had left. He denied them an outlet. He would  _not_  let Severus reduce him to tears. If he’d lost everything else, he still had that much dignity. No matter how hurt he was. His thoughts wandered, seemingly unable to settle on any one path, remembering, speculating and more than occasionally simply wallowing in misery. It wasn’t pointless self-pity when it was this justified, he told himself.

An indefinable period of time later, he was in the midst of the realisation that he would have to face the man tomorrow. The thought reminded him abruptly that the door between their minds was still open, although he was too overwrought to pay any attention to what he sensed from him. He slammed it viciously shut, half-hoping that the man would suffer the mental equivalent of trapping his fingers in it.

It was a futile act of defiance that made him feel no better once it was done, and he wondered how he was going to get through the next day, let alone the next year and a half. More than a year of this? There was just no  _way_  on earth that he’d be able to cope.

* * *

After some moments, Severus managed to force himself to walk over to the closest seat, the chairs they had been sitting in together not so long ago. Half-collapsing into the welcoming softness of his preferred seat, he wondered why his room felt so empty. Surely it had nothing to do with the realisation that Harry would probably never sit in the chair he had claimed again. Of course not. 

He hadn’t in the slightest intended for Lily’s name to leave his mouth, or even his mind. It had just happened. Once he had given in to Harry’s advance – a ridiculous loss of control, but there you were, far too late to do anything about it now – it had felt so like kissing her in the sheer wonder of it that he had been thrown back too many years.

He supposed it had been the right thing to do, at least. After all, it had seemingly freed the boy of his foolish notion of being in love with him, if the sting of his cheek and the flurry of angry, betrayed emotions in his mind could be taken as any indication of his feelings.

There was simply no reason for him to feel so regretful about it. Sad, even, at the way things had turned out. No reason, and no excuse at all. He had, he reminded himself, far more pressing concerns, but for the moment they meant little or nothing to him. 

The fact that Harry had believed what he had said –  _I love you_  – held no meaning either, he told himself severely. He would far rather the boy had spoken it aloud if he had needed to express it so urgently, then he would have been able to tell himself there was no conviction behind it, ease the faint sense of guilt for the hurt he had caused in that way.

Still, he reminded himself, belief was not at all the same thing as truth. Their actions had been simply the action of the bond, or something else. Some strange thing that made a virtue of necessity, no doubt. In time the boy would no doubt be horrified at his actions. Until then, Severus would simply return to acting the man the boy had thought he was before all this, and soon enough he would leave. As if on cue, he felt the door between their minds slam closed, almost painful in the suddenness and violence of the gesture.

He sighed and assured himself that it wasn’t his fault as he touched the slightly raised, doubtless still reddened spot where Harry had hit him. It was irrational to blame himself for not noticing the change in the boy’s feelings, for not stopping it while there was still a chance, for losing control enough to kiss him and to make a confession of feelings he wasn’t even sure he had, for saying a name that had no place between them. No, surely it was the boy’s fault for having those feelings, and admitting to them. Lily’s fault, for abandoning him, but not doing it nearly thoroughly enough, for pushing him and Harry towards each other. The bond’s fault. Anyone’s, anything’s but his own. He wished he could be angry, but all he seemed able to manage was a general resentment at the bizarre set of circumstances that had led to this eventuality.

He shut the door on his side too, and refused to let himself regret his involuntary action. Actions. No, he decided, he’d just sit here for a while, look into the fire, and remember what it had been like, with her. What it might be like to love him, if he let himself. He would not let himself.

He pushed away the thought that it might just be too late.


	2. Chapter 2

_… Yet I feel that I shall stand  
Henceforward in thy shadow._  

On the first night back at Hogwarts after the Easter holidays, Harry lay in his bed, the curtains drawn so tightly around it that even had there been any light, it would not have had a chance of penetrating through. The covers were half thrown off his body, a mere corner dragged over his middle. Tiny beads of sweat coalesced wetly at his hairline despite the fact that the dormitory could not be considered too warm by any stretch of the imagination.

Sleeping, though restlessly, he tossed and turned, first curled up on himself as if attempting to protect something infinitely precious in the hollow of his body, then splayed out, arms and legs everywhere, as if begging that protection for himself. His hands twitched, clenching on the heavy covers to seek support, curling around a phantom wand, patting or stroking the sheets under them soothingly in an almost tender gesture. Like a dog chasing dream-rabbits, the line between dream and physical action blurred almost to nothingness as he hovered in the twilight between sleep and waking.

He  _was_  dreaming again. He knew that was all it was, not true, not important, not  _real_. It meant nothing, just like all the other dreams he’d had over the holiday. Dreams he always forgot until he dreamed again, dreams that told a story he didn’t want to hear.

Yet despite all of that, it still swept him in effortlessly, dragging him down until he believed it wholly, until it was woven into the very fabric of his being, until he was the dream and it was all he knew.

* * *

_He was standing in the place he had sworn so long ago to take in this battle. The oath had been taken unwillingly, it was true, but still he **had**  sworn, with blood and magic to bind him to it. He shivered slightly, and told himself it was only because the night was so chilly. He was glad for the protection of his heavy robes, and even that of the mask._

_He felt the presence of his Master somewhere in the ranks to the fore. His masked and hooded quasi-allies, at least outwardly, stood on either side of him. Farther afield roamed the shadowy creatures recruited to the ‘cause’, their growls and snarls carrying faintly back to the rest of the army._

_He repressed a snort of incredulity at the thought of their motivations. The only cause they held was their own expansion, tumour-swift across the earth, and their only path straight through the bodies of their opposition, cunning serving only if it would help them kill._

_Somewhere in the distance, drawing closer all the while, he could feel the presence of the Other. The one he had not even set eyes on for almost a decade, and had ignored for even longer, though they had once meant much to each other. The one who had once been his student – as well as his bond-mate, perhaps even his love. He ripped his mind away from those thoughts. Now was not the time. Never would be the time._

_Perhaps he should have been there with him, with the witches and wizards who fought in the name of the Light. He knew that he no longer belonged there, no matter that it had been offered to him, several times, by more than one great wizard. He had walked in the Dark too long to step brashly to that place now, to act as if he had stood there all along. As if he had never seen the shadowed spaces within himself, and acknowledged them as they deserved._

_He had done too much in the name of the Dark to walk towards the beacon that was the Other and shamelessly claim a position of honour at his side. No, here was his true place, among the others that had given their loyalty, and what had been their hope, to the Dark magics. Perhaps, if he was lucky, he would need no other place._

_A hand slipped inside his sleeve to caress his wand. It was a gesture from his childhood, seeking reassurance that the reminder of his magic provided so generously. The rough, bulky wool was a contrast to the smooth, familiar wood, slightly warm under his stroking fingers._

_As at the beginning, so at the end, he thought, remembering the countless other times he had done the same thing. Ashes to ashes and all that Muggle nonsense. Under the mask, an almost feral grin threatened to split his face. An appropriate metaphor, perhaps, for his life._

_After this day, there would be no more hiding and pretending, no more crawling and enduring and almost-dreaming. No more need for the masks he had worn in quick succession over the years._

_No more ridiculous hoping._

_He could feel the Other moving closer. Damned creature, always creeping into his thoughts, dreams, desires, where he had no place. If the door between them had not been shut years ago, he would have slammed it now, callous and childish. He shrugged his shoulders fluidly to settle the weight of his robes more comfortably and prepared himself for battle, distracting himself from those thoughts._

_Five minutes, no more. Then the world would be remade in a new image, and only time would tell whose it would be._

_Once the task of the day, perhaps of his life, was well begun, he lost track of the many curses he cast. Taking them from behind, the preoccupied and hesitant ones, always aiming to kill, always ensuring there was an unmasked figure close enough to have done the damage. Knowing that it was the day of your death was no reason or excuse to be unsubtle. The dagger in the back was far more deadly than the sword threatening in front, and not only to morale._

_So perhaps it was ironic that, distracted by the too-near echo of the Other’s agony, the last curse he saw came from a figure he recognised, one he had taught, so long ago. One without a mask, with a still pudgy face and limp brown hair. He, overcome by_ **_that_ ** _one. Irony would never die._

_At least it was painless, as humane as a curse could be. A smirk writhed agonisingly across his face before it slipped away and darkness covered him under his final disguise._

_Perhaps, just this once, he could allow himself something, in these last moments. Some small hope of comfort._

//Forgive me, Harry.//  _It was as much an order as fatigue and almost-diffidence would allow it to be. Even now, even for this, he would not beg or plead, especially not from him. Not even from him._

//No!//  _He was not lucid enough to sense the pain and denial that powered the exclamation._

_Well enough, he thought. At least the end would be gentle. He would finally be alone, and it would not matter what the Other thought of him._

* * *

Heavy covers pulled up to his chin and tucked securely into their rightful place, Severus shifted almost imperceptibly and murmured quietly, fretfully, in his sleep. Disquiet seethed and boiled beneath the concealing surface of slumber, but it was not quite close enough to wake him. The dream pulled at him insistently, unforgiving. With infinite, ruthless, patience it whittled away at his feeble sleeping resistance until it was gone beyond any hope of recall.

Unsuspecting, unwilling, he gave in and let the dream use him as it would.

* * *

_He was looking for someone. A hopeless venture whatever the outcome, he had realised, but still he must. He’d felt the deed, he knew it had happened.  Yet, to not see it himself would shatter him. To see it might well do the same. Unconsciously, he touched the cool silver bracelet around his left wrist, the one Severus had given him so many years ago and which he had never quite been able to make himself dispose of. The charm that hid it from other eyes was still secure despite his utter exhaustion, a testament to how often he had reinforced it during the long years._

_He barely registered the twisted lunar landscape he moved stiffly through, horrendously warped by the harsh collision of Dark and Light magics. If nothing else had, the land itself would have convinced him that technicalities were all that stood between the two definitions, but he had realised it long ago. The murmurs of other people – people he knew – gathering, watching, searching, were as the whisper of the chill morning wind that blew hesitantly through his wild, roughly cut hair. It, so natural, knew it had no place here._

_‘Victory?’ he thought distractedly. It was a strange thing, that left winners just as fractured as losers, that left bodies as crumpled and broken as the ground they lay on, like a child-giant’s voiceless, abandoned dolls. An immense regret threatened to crash over him as his eyes swept the field, searching. He refused it, for the moment. Now, it would only slow him down. Time for regret – and for mourning, and for repenting that once more he had lived and others had died – later._

_It was always later. There was never enough time to do all that had to be done, let alone spare some for self-pity._

_There! His eyes caught on a black robe crumpled in the midst of a group of others. So similar to those that surrounded it, and yet he knew that was the one he needed. Some residue of their bond still remained, perhaps, or perhaps the debts that stood between them were finally being called in. Far, far too late, for the both of them._

_His steps hesitant now, he approached, a leaf from one of the few trees left standing, blown by the cautious wind. Apprehension and fear and sorrow and guilt swirled inside him, threatening to drown him. He resisted their temptation as he had refused all other emotion this day, choosing duty instead. He had this duty still to fulfil, then maybe he could have time to feel._

_Three steps, two, one remained. He knelt in a patch of space beside the crumpled robes. Some distant part of him noted the advantage of a wizards’ war – no blood and gore to litter the ground. The deadliest spells were the cleanest, and quickest. That analytical part cracked a cynical smile. Irony, like little else in his world, was as healthy as ever._

_One hand, lacking a tremble, reached out, hesitated and reached again. Brushed a shoulder hiding beneath the prickly wool of the robes, then clutched and pulled slightly. The body flopped onto its back, all the natural stiffness gone, the face still masked with blank white. He rested his hands on his knees once more and took a deep breath._

_When he reached out his hand again, a tremble had crept in. He knew what he would find. It didn’t restrain the phantom hand clutching at his heart and gut and mind. His eyes followed his hand as it plucked the mask off with one smooth motion and laid it in his lap, then they flicked back to the face. Peaceful as it had never been in life, the sneer-wrinkles around the mouth gone. No breath marring it with even the gentlest movement._

//Severus!//

_No reply, as there had been none all these years._

_The hand returned to brush the somehow still warm face. Severus had always craved warmth. He closed the staring eyes, hiding them from the intrusion of his gaze. Sacrilege, to see those eyes without life and focus and assurance, and the simmering, well-hidden passion._

//I’m sorry. I guess it really was goodbye after all, all those years ago,//  _he thought, though there was no one to hear it._

_Nothing more to be said, he arranged the dusty robes about the abandoned body. The mask went into a fold of his own stained robes. He drew the body’s former dignity about him like his Cloak – lost years ago, of course, but still a treasured memory – and went to find his friends, those that were left. There was a world to rebuild and no one to share his mind. Finally he was alone. Perhaps he should have been used to it._

* * *

Harry woke to a hand on his shoulder, not quite shaking him, and a concerned face hovering above him, his name just dying on its lips. A slender slice of cloud-filtered sunlight reached him through the part in the bed’s curtains, although it was partly blocked by the body that belonged to the familiar, freckled face. He felt suddenly cold, and realised it was because the majority of the covers were on the floor. It seemed he’d had a restless night, though he now had nothing more than tangled impressions left of what he’d dreamed.

He stretched and yawned, taking a moment to gather himself. Finally he asked, "What’s the matter, Ron?" Distracted as he was by the worry in his friend’s expression, the feeling that he was forgetting something vitally important faded faster than fog in the midday summer sun.

"You were… well, whimpering." Ron’s voice was barely more than a whisper, although Harry could clearly hear the movements of the other boys hauling themselves out of bed. It must be later than he’d originally thought when he woke. He caught Dean’s voice replying to a question from Seamus, and he wasn’t usually up until the last possible minute.

"I was?" His brow creased as he tried to recall what in his dream might have caused it. Memory slipped through his fingers like blood and scurried for the safety of the dark recesses of his unconscious, leaving nothing behind but a faint, sticky sensation of aversion.

"Yeah. Don’t remember what you were dreaming about?" The redhead moved away a little, giving Harry room to sit up and begin the laborious process of getting out of bed.

"No," Harry frowned more, arching his back and feeling unexpected stiffness throughout his body. "Just a bad dream, I guess. It’s gone now, though." His hand went to the bracelet he wore, the action and the feel of cold metal sparking a tiny flare of memory that vanished before he could grasp it. A shadowy sense of melancholy lingered however, though he could not give it any name or reason.

"Well, you’d best get up anyway. Breakfast is soon," continued Ron, moving back towards his own bed to pick up the towel and clothes laid out there. "Hermione’ll be waiting for us." Not only that, thought Harry, she’d probably have an hour’s worth of work done by the time they got down there.

Despite having had a full night’s sleep, he felt completely unrested. It was an awfully familiar feeling of late. Harry pried himself out of bed to collect his things and follow his friend’s lead, mind still preoccupied, emotions hopelessly and inexplicably snarled.


	3. Chapter 3

_… Nevermore_  
 _Alone upon the threshold of my door_    
 _Of individual life, I shall command_    
 _The uses of my soul,_

As he went about his daily routine a little later on that morning, Harry tried to recall what exactly he had been dreaming about. Clearly, it had to have been something unpleasant if, as Ron had claimed, he’d been whimpering before he had been woken. The lingering sense of melancholy that still nagged at him corroborated that suspicion, but wasn’t of much help to him in attempting to figure it out.

He had little success in his attempts to remember his dream, but at least his preoccupation with it prevented him from probing at the closed door at the back of his mind. He had done that every day for the last two months, and it had become almost a habit. It was like a sore tooth – despite knowing that it would hurt to prod it, to see if it felt any different and find that it did not, he could not resist the temptation, and caught himself doing it without his conscious volition when his mind wandered. Even while he’d spent the Easter holidays with Sirius he had thought almost constantly about – him, and now he was back at school for his last term as a sixth-year. Today was the first day of classes, and soon he would be seeing  _him_  again.

He would see him at meals, and in class, and simply pass him in the corridors. Perhaps he would even have detention with him, or be caught breaking the rules in the middle of the night by him. Whatever the cause of their interaction, he would have to act as if nothing had changed, or as if everything had, and the mere thought threatened to give him a splitting headache.

When he entered the common room, he spotted Ron and Hermione sitting next to each other on one of the sofas, their heads bent close together. They were talking quietly, clearly intent on the topic, whatever it was. They didn’t notice his quiet arrival, but when he walked over to greet them, they moved apart slightly with a air of faint guilt.  

"What is it?" he asked suspiciously. From the look on Ron’s face, always the easier to read, they’d probably been talking about him. If there was one thing he didn’t need right now, it was more questions from them. It was too tempting to tell them everything, and let them take some of the worry, but he knew it would be just the wrong thing to do.

Rather than answering his question, Hermione replied, "Wait a little while until everyone goes to breakfast."

That reply really didn’t bode well for him. Harry nodded and sat down on her other side nevertheless. Sinking into the soft cushions, he resumed yesterday’s conversation about the trip she’d taken to Egypt over the holidays. He found himself unexpectedly caught up in her account of the trip. He had to admit, the experiences she’d had sounded absolutely fascinating.

Perhaps his bad dream had something to do with her talk of mummies and such, he mused. It was certainly spooky, although some of the things he’d faced could give the stories a run for their money, and the nightmares he’d suffered after that hadn’t left him feeling quite the way he did this morning. Perhaps more daunting was that it was all too easy to think of ways that Voldemort might be able to use the ancient curses she mentioned, but no, he didn’t think it was anything to do with that either. Frowning and trying again to recall the dream, he didn’t notice the worried look she cast at him.

When the common room was finally empty apart from the three of them, Hermione turned to him. "What’s going on, Harry?" she asked without further beating about the bush.

"What d’you mean?" he asked as artlessly as he could manage, one hand rubbing absently at the soft, faded upholstery of the sofa. He tried to keep his guilt off his face, but felt that he probably hadn’t succeeded. He had never been much good at acting. His suspicion was confirmed by her response. 

"You’ve been acting odd for a while now," she replied almost before he’d finished speaking. She’d prepared this speech, it seemed. "Before we broke up for Easter you were awfully quiet and you seemed kind of sad. You didn’t write much over the holidays. Ron says he’s woken up a few times in the night and there’ve been silencing charms around your bed. Now you’re having dreams that make you whimper." Well, that was certainly a rather comprehensive summary of his behaviour over the last few months, and it did sound kind of bad, when she put it in that way.

"It can’t be Voldemort," she continued, "because you always seem to remember those dreams, and you at least tell us that they were about him." Harry thought he detected a hint of accusation in her voice, and felt even guiltier for making her – them? - feel left out. But then, it wasn’t any more than they’d done to him, even if it was unintentional all round. "Anyway, we’re worried about you, and we want to help, if you’ll let us."

Ron broke in, clearly eager to add his support to Hermione’s statement. "Something’s bothering you, Harry, and well… if you want to talk about it…" He trailed off, leaving an opening that Harry had to fill. The prospect of silence felt suddenly uncomfortable, to be avoided at all costs.

"It’s… it’s nothing, really," he replied. "I honestly don’t remember last night’s dream at all, and I really think it was just an ordinary nightmare. Too much stress or something, you know?

"The silencing charms, well…" He didn’t have to force a blush as he tried to think of reasonable explanations for his actions. Sometimes, although far too rarely for his liking if he was completely truthful with himself, his dreams had given him a more pleasant reason for casting the silencing charms. He realised that as he talked he was once more touching the bracelet on his left wrist, and forced his hand away. Obscurus charm or not, it would not do to draw attention to it. Perhaps he ought to stop wearing it, it would probably be the best thing to do, but there was something about the idea that felt subtly wrong.

Hermione blushed faintly too at his reply. "Oh…" she said, eventually following with, "And the other things?"

"I just… just had a few problems with something, it was nothing important and it’s better now, really. I’m fine. I promise," he insisted, as sincerely as he could.

"Well, if you say so," she said reluctantly, and Harry saw Ron nodding in agreement behind her. "But remember we’re here if you need to talk about anything, okay? I know we might have seemed a little preoccupied with each other," her flush deepened as she glanced briefly at Ron, and a hint of a smile at the reminder of just why they were preoccupied crossed her face, "but you’re still our friend."

"Thanks." They smiled as if nothing had changed since the first time they became friends, and for that moment it felt true. "I’m really hungry," he added, eager to escape from the topic now that he had hopefully eased their suspicions and concerns. "How about some breakfast?"

They made their way to the Great Hall, discussing their plans for the rest of the term and for the summer holiday. As they entered, Harry refused to look up at the High Table. It didn’t, or at least shouldn’t, matter to him if Severus – Snape, he reminded himself, not Severus ever again – was there or not.

* * *

Severus muttered the password – "Canary Cream" – under his breath and waited impatiently for the gargoyle guarding the entrance to the Headmaster’s office to move aside.

As he waited, he tried to think of a possible reason for today’s summons. They had held the beginning-of-term staff meeting only yesterday, and Albus had indicated no concerns about his teaching plan, or his other duties, then. There was not even anything new he needed to report to the Order, and as far as he knew there was nothing planned on that front that he needed to be involved in for at least some weeks. No, there was no obvious reason for this meeting, which could only mean that the Headmaster wished to stick his nose into his private business yet again.

The gargoyle finally opened the staircase for him after what he felt was a rather unnecessarily lengthy time of deliberation. It had never liked him much, even when he had been a student, he recalled. He patted it absently on the fierce beak as he walked into the narrow opening. As he trudged up the winding staircase, he repressed a sigh, steeling himself in preparation for the interrogation he knew would follow.

"Ah, Severus," Albus twinkled at him as he entered, and he knew, with a flash of insight born of long acquaintance, that it was going to be bad. "Take a seat," the older wizard ordered. "Tea?" 

At least Albus knew better than to offer him sweets by now. It had only taken him twenty years to learn that, so perhaps there was still hope that he would one day allow Severus to live his own life. He repressed a snort as he refused the invitation to relax implicit in the welcoming embrace of the armchair in front of the desk. It wasn’t like him to be so optimistic. "Thank you," he said instead, knowing from experience that the teacup would give him something to do while attempting to avoid the searching, unwarranted questions.

"How was your holiday?" asked the Headmaster, handing him a cup and saucer overgrown with some of the most dangerous vegetation he’d been privileged to see in years.

Well, it was an innocuous enough question, but the answer, in this situation, required some thought. He turned the cup in his hands, feeling smooth porcelain and warmth as he pondered. "Educational," he answered finally, after casting his mind back over those weeks.

He had left Hogwarts over Easter for the first time in years. The last time had been in his second year of teaching, he remembered. Perhaps it had been foolish of him, but he had had the vague thought that perhaps some distance would help him gain a little perspective, a little clarity of thought. Would, if he was lucky, allow him to keep from fixating on the feeling of the boy’s mouth under his as he had far too often since that day. He shivered at the sudden flash of sense-memory, and was glad that his voluminous robes would probably hide the brief tremor, even from Albus.

Educational indeed. He had learnt that his control over his thoughts was dangerously worn. He had been barely able to concentrate on the sights, magical and otherwise, of China.

"It seems to have been good for you, my boy. You look slightly better than you did at the end of last term. Less anxious." There was kindness in Albus’ tone, but also a dangerous curiosity that Severus knew, again from experience, did not bode well for his victim.

Oh dear. At least he knew the purpose of this little meeting now. Well there was only one thing to do, since he was certainly not about to confess all; he would bluff as long as he could, and hope for the best. Albus would not be fooled, but if he resisted hard enough, he should give up. There were far more important things demanding his energy than a little added melancholy on the part of his always sombre Potions master.

"I was unaware that I was looking unwell," he retorted, knowing that it was not quite the scathing insult he should have delivered to keep up appearances. 

"Oh, not unwell, Severus, simply a little under the weather. Preoccupied. Paler than usual. I rather thought that was why you decided to go abroad."

Albus couldn’t possibly really think that he had gone all the way to China in order to get some  _sun_  or, Merlin forbid, to  _relax._ It was doubtless a gambit to persuade him to give up his secrets. On the other hand, no one had ever accused the old coot of being unobservant. He had clearly noticed something of last term’s situation, despite Severus’ attempts to conceal it as best he could. Thank the stars he didn’t seem to know any particular details about Lily’s little blood-magic experiment and its most unfortunate results, or the questions would have been far more difficult to handle.

"I merely felt the need for a change of scenery." That was true enough as far as it went. Severus allowed a hint of challenge to creep into his eyes as he watched Albus over the rim of his teacup, knowing that the other man would sense his honesty. ‘ _If you want to get anything more out of me, you’ll have to dig and pry, force it out of me. Are you up to it, old man?’_ he thought, looking straight into to sharp blue eyes and practically daring Albus to read his mind. He refused to accept that he was being childish.

"Oh." The Headmaster sipped his own tea. "Perhaps I was wrong then. But there  _was_  something bothering you last term?"

"Not at all. Only the stress of attempting to force facts into thick skulls daily and then being compelled to tutor Potter."

Albus’ expression gained a hint of victory. Damn.

"I was under the impression that you two were becoming friendly."  _Hah. If only you knew._  There was a malicious part of him that wanted to mention just how friendly Harry had been, just for the sheer shock value. It would be one way of getting his own back for all the times the Headmaster had called him in here just to break some news that had shattered his view of the world. Or to request some favour that inevitably ended up making his life even more miserable. Or simply for an interrogation that ended with him spewing his guts in front of the man, literally on one especially memorable occasion. 

"And," added the other man, paying no attention to his introspection, "I seem to remember that you were calling him Harry. You certainly did so the last time you were in here." He was like a dog with a bone when he got an idea into his head. An annoying, white-coated, long-bearded, persistent terrier, thought Severus.

"I was mistaken in thinking that I was mistaken about him," he said tersely, not caring much that the sentence made next to no sense.

"Ah." Albus was clearly thinking hard about this. "I assume, then, that you will no longer be tutoring him?" 

_I’m positive you noticed that I wasn’t tutoring him at the end of term._ "Of course I will continue, if you feel it necessary. However, I would much prefer not to." There, that ought to throw him off the track, at least a little. He hoped. If you didn’t want to do something, it was much safer not to let anyone know it.

"We’ll see. I’m sure there will be no need for tutoring in the first week or two anyway. After that, well…" Severus reminded himself that no one else would see anything the slightest bit threatening in that sentence, but it didn’t help much.

That seemed to be that, for the moment at any rate. "If that’s everything, Headmaster?" he asked, as politely as he could manage. He drank the last drops from the teacup and set it and the saucer down on Albus’ desk.

"Unless you had anything else you wish to discuss with me?" Albus was still nursing his own cup, looking at him with an expression that had been known to have him telling all in the past.

"No," Severus said firmly.  _Not unless I wanted to give you a heart attack, and do half Voldemort’s job for him_.

"Goodbye, Severus."

"Headmaster." 

He left the office, pointedly not thinking about Harry. Or the snake-shaped paperweight and the photograph buried at the back of one of his desk drawers.

Certainly, he was not thinking about the fact that in two days he would have to face the boy in a classroom once more.


	4. Chapter 4

_…nor lift my hand  
Serenely in the sunshine as before,_

It was early on Wednesday morning, an hour that the majority of people would have found positively blasphemous if forced to contemplate being up during it. As Hermione went about her daily ablutions, she luxuriated in the early-morning quiet.

None of the other girls had even begun to stir in their beds yet, and the lack of voices and the feeling of having the whole of this small world to herself was a positive extravagance. It was good to have this time alone, to prepare herself for the day and the trials that it would surely bring. Whatever they were, she could face them, with her friends and her resources. She nodded firmly at herself in the mirror, and followed it up with a smile.

While brushing her teeth, she automatically began to evaluate what the day had in store. Naturally it would be breakfast first, and then Double Charms, she thought, starting to draw up the timetable in her head. That was followed by... She paused, frowning as she found herself momentarily unable to remember what came next. Really, this was most unlike her, she thought, rinsing off the toothbrush and setting it in its holder.  

Ah yes, of course, she thought after a moment or two as she gathered the things needed for her shower.  

It was followed by Arithmancy, and after that would come lunch and a free hour in which she had promised to help Harry find some books that he needed from the library. She frowned again, soaping herself briskly. Really, considering the amount of time he’d spent there last year, he really ought to have been familiar enough with the place to find what he needed by himself. He certainly hadn’t asked her for much help then! She decided that she’d worry about that in a while, once she’d got through assessing the day. She made a note to come back to it later.

Then it was Muggle Studies, and finally Double Potions. It would be the first class of the new term in all of today’s subjects, and there was something interesting coming up in each and every one of them. It was so good to be back at school again, and positively wonderful to have the promise of new challenges. She was looking forward to Charms particularly – Professor Flitwick had told her at the end of last term that they would be starting to work on advanced shielding charms – but everything held promise.

As usual, she reached the common room before the rest of her housemates. However, she could hear the sounds of movement from some of the other rooms as she walked down, her school bag held loosely in one hand. She settled quickly into one of the armchairs in front of the fire to look over the relevant chapter in her Charms book again. Of course, she’d read the section several times before, but there was never any harm in refreshing the memory, and the exams would be on them before they knew it. She did not intend to face them unprepared if she could avoid it with simply the application of a little effort. The book seemed almost brand new, the leather soft and slightly warm under her hands, the pages smooth and unmarked. She had always been careful with her books.

About half an hour after she’d begun, Ron appeared. Despite only her being halfway through the chapter, he managed to persuade her almost immediately to lay her book aside in favour of more physically pleasurable pursuits, although she reminded him sternly that it was only until the others appeared. There were some things that should be kept private, in her opinion, and one thing was for certain – she never wanted someone to walk in on her and Ron here the way she had on Seamus and Angelina last year. She found herself blushing faintly at the memory even now.

The others began to straggle in after a few minutes, stumbling down the stairs in a daze or bouncing cheerfully into the room according to their inclination and caffeine requirement. As she heard the first footsteps thump on the stone, she moved back to her original chair and returned to her reading, even managing to persuade Ron to do some too. At least, he got his own battered book out, but from the way he kept glancing over at her, she suspected that he wasn’t taking much of it in. Well, neither was she right now, so she supposed that she could forgive him for it this time.

Soon Harry arrived, and she turned her attention to him, examining him intently. To the cursory glance, he appeared as he always had – his greeting was cheerful, his smile seemed wholehearted. It was almost as if the gloom that had settled over him last term had never been, and she nearly let herself believe the assurances of his well-being he’d given two days ago.

Yet there was something wrong in the way he carried himself, in his eyes, particularly in the way he occasionally broke off in the middle of a conversation to stare blankly into empty air with a pensive expression. Despite his denial of any difficulty, all her instincts were screaming at her that there was something amiss. Something was bothering him, and it needed to be fixed, somehow. Obviously, he wasn’t going to tell her about it, no matter how apparent it was that he had a problem, despite his attempts to hide it.

She’d just have to watch him and try to find out, she decided. He needed all his wits about him this year and the next, and if he wasn’t going to fix whatever was wrong, she would have to do it somehow on his behalf. After all, what else were friends for?

At breakfast, she kept a careful eye on him, noticing that he ate very little, only doing more than pick at his food when she made it obvious that she was watching him. She soon became aware of the way he was carefully not looking at the High Table. When, in an attempt to find out more about this strange avoidance, she pointed out the Headmaster’s gaudy new hat, he looked up for the shortest time required to convince her that he was really interested, barely enough time to register that the old wizard was wearing a hat at all.

So, she decided, it had something to do with a professor. Logic dictated that Harry’s reason for not looking at the professors most probably was related to whatever was worrying him. Not even Harry could manage more than a certain number of issues at any one time. Since there were only a limited number of teachers, and Harry hadn’t spent much time with many, this bit of information narrowed her list down considerably.  

Snape was watching Harry almost as intently as she was, she realised toward the end of the meal as she scanned the table, speculating on who the culprit might be. She wondered what that was all about, but set it aside as a less important consideration.

Although, she realised suddenly, Snape was one of the people Harry  _had_  spent a lot of time with. At least he’d done so before the end of the last term, what with all the tutoring and the detentions. She’d have to watch them both in Potions. It was not at all beyond the realms of possibility that Snape had done something unspecified, but nonetheless horrible, to Harry in one of their tutoring sessions. Of course, the theory had the small problem that the hostility between them had appeared to decrease with those lessons, but she was sure there could be ways to explain that away.

Harry was quite subdued in Charms, although he managed all of the tasks without much effort. That was just as well, since his efforts were half-hearted at best. However, she had to be happy when she noticed the way most of the spells seemed to come almost naturally to him. He was now usually among the first few people to grasp a new charm, and his were generally the strongest. Perhaps the tutoring really had helped him, if it turned out not to have been the cause of his problem. Glancing past him at Ron, she saw him struggling with the task, and sighed. She suspected there was little hope that he would ever become a good student. Still, he always managed to master them eventually, she consoled herself, and once he did, he was at least as good as most of the others in the class. And, she added, he had many other wonderful qualities that made up for it. His grasp of the finer points of kissing, for one.

Realising that her attention had wandered, she dragged it back to Harry, who was a more immediate problem.

He seemed far happier and more at ease in Arithmancy, despite the fact that she had to explain several of the problems step by step before he grasped them. He was finding it quite hard going without an OWL background in the subject but seemed determined to try his best, as he had in the preceding two terms. She was doing her best to help him, and again Snape’s tutoring seemed to have been of some use.

At lunch, he still avoided looking at the High Table. Glancing up, she noticed an odd absence, and pointed out to him that Snape wasn’t there. Unmistakable worry crossed his face, which rather surprised her – why on earth should it concern him that Snape hadn’t turned up for a meal? - but he looked up and rather gave the impression of actively trying to shake off his worry. That odd focused-elsewhere expression crossed his face, and after a minute or so, he appeared actually quite glad of Snape’s absence.

After that, he seemed much more relaxed. It was almost definitely something to do with the Potions professor, then. Since everything seemed to point at him, she decided that she would just have to be very observant in the class that afternoon. If anything was certain, it was that the problem, whatever it was, wouldn’t be easily uncovered, let alone solved, but at least she had managed to make some sort of start on it.

* * *

Harry felt every muscle in his body begin to tense in anticipation as he entered the dungeons. It only got worse when he walked into the Potions classroom and realised that Snape would be there very soon. That he’d have to spend two hours in the same room with him.

Feeling Hermione’s eyes on him, he tried not to allow any of the trepidation he felt at the prospect of the lesson to show in his face. She’d seemed to accept his explanation for his recent quietness, but it hadn’t escaped his notice that she’d been sticking awfully close to him today, and watching him even more carefully. He’d just have to be especially cautious. There was nothing else he could do, really.

After all, he couldn’t order her to stop caring about him. On the other hand, it wasn’t like he had any idea of how to even  _begin_  explaining the whole thing to her and he would have to explain all of it if she managed to find out even a little bit. She could be very persistent when she wanted to, not to mention observant, and she wouldn’t rest until she’d found out all his secrets. Sometimes he thought she took her self-imposed quest for knowledge ever so slightly to extremes. And even if somehow he did manage to get the story across, then he would have to tell Ron too, and that would be even more problematic, and after that they’d both want to try and help…

He cut off that train of thought before he could work himself into a complete state and took his seat, with Ron as the unwitting buffer between himself and Hermione. As he set out books, quills, parchment and equipment, he tried to steel himself for Severus’ entrance. The professor swept in just as he was beginning to get into a reasonably interesting discussion with his friend about the Quidditch League prospects, and the Cannons’ chances in particular. Harry resisted the temptation to look up at the man, who stood in front of the class with his usual commanding air and never once looked in Harry’s direction. The lesson began.

Harry was particularly cautious, as he had been before the end of the previous term, to ensure that he made no mistakes whatsoever in the lesson. To ensure that Severus – no, he reminded himself for the hundredth time, not Severus, but Snape – would have no reason to approach him, and most especially no reason to be expected to give him detention. It was even less appealing than a detention with Filch, or even a heart to heart with the Headmaster.

From how thoroughly he was ignored, it was abundantly clear that the man didn’t want to speak to him, and was trying just as hard to avoid giving him a detention. He told himself not to be hurt, and reminded himself sharply that he didn’t want to have to spend any time with him either.

It didn’t matter at all that he was –  _had been, for a while_ , he corrected – in love with him.

* * *

Severus watched Harry surreptitiously throughout the lesson, just as he had in the classes before the end of term and during meals, and any other occasion he could find or create to do so. He was merely keeping an eye on the boy, he assured himself, as it was his responsibility to do. After all, his… rejection? Well, the word would do as well as any, he supposed. His rejection had doubtless been hard on him, if the feelings still coming off the bond despite their best attempts to close and ignore it were any indication.

He knew Harry more than well enough by now to realise that he was not the sort to seek help for his problems, or even to share them. Since he was the only other person to understand the whole situation, and was perhaps slightly to blame, he really owed it to the boy to ensure that he was all right. Not that he had any real idea of what he could do if he turned out not to be after all, but that was a mere technicality.

He regretted vaguely that the boy gave him no excuse to berate him, and with the Slytherins and Gryffindors no longer sharing these classes, no one else would engineer the opportunity. In a detention, he could have examined the boy more closely without giving the appearance of wanting to be near him, but this class afforded him no such pretext.

He did  _not_  want to be near him, he reminded himself sharply, and clearly Harry felt the same way. After all, it had been his action that first attempted to close their bond, and Severus was not about to try to change that. It would only be asking for trouble.

The cool darkness of the classroom, the mixed smell of potion ingredients, so thick he could almost taste it, even the soft murmurs of his pupils as they muttered advice at each other were familiar and comforting. He soothed himself with the well-known sensations, and told himself sharply to stop thinking about Harry.

It didn’t matter at all that he was missing –  _had missed, for a while_ , he repeated to himself _–_ the boy’s friendship and companionship.

* * *

Hermione watched them both, and wondered. Something very weird was going on between Harry and Snape. They were ignoring each other so attentively, and Harry was trying so very hard with his potion, that it was virtually impossible  _not_  to realise that something peculiar was going on. There was quite simply no doubt about it.

She was determined to find out what it was, and make sure that it was dealt with somehow. If sheer curiosity wasn’t enough, she at least owed it to Harry to make sure that he was able to concentrate.


	5. Chapter 5

_Without the sense of that which I forbore,  
Thy touch upon the palm._

On this occasion, it was just past eight on an otherwise ordinary Saturday evening when the summons came in its familiar excruciating form. Severus had been in the middle of a discussion with Minerva on a possible change to the sixth-year syllabus at the time. However, as soon as he felt the mark begin to burn, he excused himself without explanation, knowing that the lack would itself provide her with the reason.  

She left without question, but also not without giving him the usual sympathetic glance, which he naturally ignored completely. Within a few minutes of feeling the command burning on his arm, he had gathered the necessary things and departed.

When he Apparated into the hidden stone-walled room in Goyle Senior’s cellar which had been given as the location of this meeting, he was relieved to note that a good half of the others who made up the circle had yet to arrive. He made the required obeisance to the Dark Lord. Voldemort appeared deep in thought – doubtless boding ill for someone - and seemed consequently to pay little attention to Severus’ routine prostration. Once he had been given an offhand acknowledgement, he strode quickly to his place to wait, wondering what had been planned for this night.

From the choice of location and the potions workbench set up off to one side, Voldemort would no doubt require Severus to create a potion for him. He merely hoped that it would be something that he could make without the consequences adding yet another weight to those that already plagued what passed for his soul. Considering the source of the order, he knew that such a thing was extremely unlikely, to say the least.

Death Eater after Death Eater, cloaked, masked and hooded, appeared in quick succession at the centre of the rapidly forming circle. They took their places only pausing to abase themselves appropriately in Voldemort’s direction. Soon only two places were left open – Malfoy’s and Thane’s.

The latter had after Karkaroff’s death replaced him both among the Death Eaters and as Headmaster of Durmstrang, and had soon become a favourite of the Dark Lord’s. He had a cruel nature and a love for evil, not only the Dark, that was notable even in this company.  

Severus wondered what they might be doing. It was unlike them to be late, as they both held high positions in the circle, meaning that it was far more likely that they were fulfilling a task for Voldemort. It was something else to ponder in order to pass the time, but no more soothing.

The reason for the absence of the two was made apparent after a few minutes, when they materialised on the spot where the others had previously appeared. Between them they held a Stupefied young Muggle woman, who appeared somewhat the worse for wear. They dumped her unceremoniously in a corner, made their bows, and moved to their places to complete the circle, Malfoy on Voldemort’s right, Thane on his left.

Severus waited, holding a carefully dispassionate expression despite the safety provided by the mask as Voldemort made his customary speech to open the proceedings. Since his… rebirth… his addiction to verbosity had grown ever worse. Severus let the words pass over him without making much of an impression. A part of his brain occupied itself with cataloguing the potions which called for the use of human blood, whether in general or young female in particular. The combination of factors told him without a doubt that it was the fate that had been planned for her. He had seen enough such victims in his time, and used more than a few of them.

He had time to come up with a reasonably daunting list of possible potions by the time Voldemort had finished speaking. None of the items on it were soothing to his conscience. Of course, human blood was an important component in a great many benevolent potions too, but in every one of those cases it had to be given with the free will of the donor. This quite clearly would not be. Blood magic was a highly complex thing, as he now knew from experience he would gladly have forgone.

"Severus."

"Yes, my Lord?" He snapped himself promptly back to full attention at the sound of Voldemort’s voice. Now was not the time to be thinking about such things, not when he needed all his wits about him. 

"I find myself in need of a Ruin potion. Say, sufficient for a hundred people?" The tone the request-command was given in was almost frighteningly conversational, while the topic was anything but.

If there were such things as Unforgivable potions, Ruin would surely have been among them. It was most certainly among the first that had been placed on the Ministry’s list of banned Potions.

It was inevitably fatal, but that was of little importance. After all, so were many other potions, whether that was their purpose or due to abuse. Rather, its true cruelty lay in the stages leading to that fatality, of which Severus’ mind insisted on reminding him, without sparing him any of the details.

First – intense pain, claimed to rival even the Cruciatus, although no one had been left alive, let alone sane enough, after Ruin’s application to comment. The blood used and the power of the potion’s maker determined the duration of this stage.

Second – insanity, of a horrifyingly calculated form. Systematically coursing through the brain, it would seek out the foci of strong positive emotions and attempt to make the victim destroy them, as horrendously as possible.

Third – a gradual return of the mental faculties, followed by a period in which the person could realise the true horror of what they had done.

Finally – death in slow, painful increments.

He had seen it used once before. It had sickened him to see the perversion of his art. It had not merely been on account of the results it produced, but also the knowledge of what the maker had been required to do to create it. The reactions of the others present had been almost as revolting. He had hidden his own reaction as well as he could, plastering on a mask of almost equal enjoyment to hide his horror. 

It took horrifyingly little time to prepare, especially when compared to other, less appalling potions, as long as one had access to the ingredients, skills and power required. Thankfully those three were all rare, the combination of them all correspondingly rarer. It appeared that he was, thanks to Voldemort, now in possession of that enviable status.

The mere thought of making the potion, the reminder of its effects, was enough to make him shiver. Mostly it was due to a combination of dread and disgust, but it also bore a touch of anticipation he could not seem to quell despite his certain knowledge of just how wrong it was. The thought of the challenge, the chance to know if he was capable of making even this, was horrifically tempting, as much as he tried to deny it.

He knew one thing. He could not make it. Certainly not in the amount required. There was no hint of ‘would not’ in his reaction. For that many people, there was no chance of him even considering it as a price that had to be paid to keep Voldemort’s faith in him. Maybe, for one person, or even five he could have marked it on the same slate as the other dark potions he had created for Voldemort. Maybe he could have called it a necessary evil, somehow justified it to himself. But not for a hundred.

Still, he could not say that to this gathering, and simply doing it wrong in some obvious manner would not work. He would merely be punished – he forced his mind away from the knowledge that he would most likely be punished anyway - then made to attempt it again.

Rather, he would have to find some way of making Voldemort think he was not powerful enough to complete it. Voldemort himself, thankfully, had never mastered potion-making to the degree required, although of course he knew what was required. He had studied every one of the Dark Arts well, though he had only mastered those he saw as most essential. Neither had any of his followers chosen that path except, of course, for Severus, which after all was one reason why they had been so eager to have him. His father had been so very pleased when he had first mentioned his preference for potions, though it had taken him years to realise why.

"I will attempt it, my Lord," was all he said in reply. He allowed none of his churning thoughts and half-formed plans, each discarded almost as quickly as they appeared, to show in his face. The red eyes peered at him, faintly considering, before he was dismissed to begin. He walked over to the bench as slowly as he dared and started to prepare the required ingredients as Voldemort turned to speak to Thane. He tried at first to overhear anything of their conversation that he could, but soon was rapt in the almost meditative state that the challenge of brewing the potion induced.

For over an hour he distilled nightshade essence and diluted it with stagnant marsh water blended in strict proportion with the light of the dark moon. He shredded vampire bat wings, grated sphinx beak. Casting a charm to protect his hands, he chopped a mixture of hallucinogenic and deadly mushrooms with extreme care. During that time he managed to lose himself, gratefully, in the smells of the components and their textures under his manipulations, the sound of the small fire under his bubbling cauldron. The utter absorption of potion-making was a welcome relief from his thoughts.

Once everything was in place, he began the laborious process of blending the ingredients, adding each at precisely the right time and in exactly the right amounts, his wand waving unerringly in the prescribed gestures, his voice speaking clearly and accurately the required words. But ultimately he had to approach the point he had attempted to put off as long as he could.

He sprinkled in a pinch of powdered diamond and watched the potion turn a deep, royal purple. Suppressing a tremble that was demanding to make itself known, he set the fire so the potion base would continue to simmer gently. He sluiced down a silver blade with pure alcohol, laid it apart from his other tools, and made his way to his master. Voldemort appeared to be planning something with Pettigrew and Marissa Leturi, another newcomer to the Death Eater circle. Severus dared not hesitate even long enough to attempt to eavesdrop a little.

"Excuse me," he said, allowing a touch of uncertainty and worry to creep into his voice. The seeds of doubt had to be planted now if he was to have any chance of surviving what would come soon, if everything went as planned. His only hope – slim as it was - lay in convincing Voldemort of his powerlessness.

"What is it, Severus?" The reply positively crackled with impatience. The thought crossed his mind that this must be something like what his students experienced when they approached him, but he pushed it away. There was no time or thought to spare for whimsy.

"I am ready for… for the final ingredient," he said softly.

"Good. Goyle!"

"Sir?" The man’s voice was much like his son’s – slow, deep and indescribably, undeniably stupid.

"The Muggle. Now."

"Yes, sir." Goyle had been watching over the woman in case she woke unexpectedly and tried to resist. Now he lifted her like some bagged and weighed commodity and carried her over to the bench.

"Well? What are you waiting for, Severus? Get back to work," snapped Voldemort, turning back to his conversation.

"Yes, sir."

He tried not to shudder as he prepared himself for the next steps. This, he told himself, was no worse than some of the things he had needed to do before. In an action that had become almost automatic over the last few months, he checked his shield and strengthened it, thinking of the inscription on a green glass paperweight and eyes of a darker shade of the same colour, looking up at him with honesty and some other emotion in their clear depths.

He shrugged away the thought and focused instead on the woman, and the task at hand.

"Ennervate."

The woman jerked and gasped into consciousness, Goyle holding her down despite her obvious harmlessness. After all, she was a Muggle, and, considering the minimal nature of her clothing, could hardly be armed. It didn’t prevent Goyle pinning her like some dangerous beast. 

"Listen to me and I will not let them cause you pain," murmured Severus in what attempted to be a soothing tone as soon as he judged her in a state to comprehend his words. 

She, quite sensibly, clearly did not believe a word of it. Nevertheless, she jerked her head in a shaky assent, perhaps realising that he was better than any other alternative.

"Put her down, Goyle." The gorilla-like man did so, and left the cellar, presumably having no other duties for the moment.

"Now, what’s your name?" he said, injecting as much kindness as he could muster into the question.

"M-Mary…" she stammered, barely audible.

"Very well, Mary. Sit down on the bench for me."

She obeyed, slowly, eyes open but obviously registering little of her surroundings, her reactions sluggish and uncertain. Quite clearly Malfoy and Thane had drugged her before abducting her. No matter, it would simply make his job easier. If he was lucky, the drugs would be incompatible with the potion, but he dared not hope for that.

"Now, do try not to make too much noise," he said, stepping closer.

Her eyes widened fractionally in the instant before he lifted his prepared knife and, in his left hand, a broad, shallow, pure silver basin. Before she could move, he made an expert incision down her left forearm, slicing along the length of the vein from wrist to elbow and catching the blood in the basin. She whimpered, but gave little other reaction, and he wondered, distantly, what on earth they had given her.

He had other things to worry about, though. He left her perched on the bench, bleeding heavily, and returned to his task with complete single-mindedness. It could not erase, or even mute, his trepidation at the knowledge of both what this task would require of him, and of his intentions when it was complete.


	6. Chapter 6

_… The widest land  
Doom takes to part us,_

Robes and shirt half-open, his head, hands and the spot over his heart still anointed with streaks of the Muggle’s blood…

No, he reminded himself sternly, not the Muggle, but  _Mary_. He dared not deny her humanity to himself – making it easier on himself would make it all too easy to forget what he did, and why it was necessary. Make it far too simple to fall into the trap of thinking that he did nothing wrong in committing these actions. He dared not make that mistake. No matter how good his justifications might be, it  _was_  wrong.

Still, he did not allow himself to wonder who she had been before, what kind of life she had led. He knew from experience that later it would be almost more than he could bear, to know only her name and her face. That, and what he had done to her.

There were no justifications that could make this into a worthy action. It was a stark, agonising knowledge.

He was still marked with her blood from the preceding steps in the potion-making procedure. The drying red-brown streaks cracked and pulled at his skin, which seemed far too pale in contrast. He returned to her and, with a considerable effort of will, gathered his courage for the last few stages. She was pale and still, sitting exactly as he’d left her after gathering a few more… ingredients from her. He had given in and staunched the flow of blood when the sight of the growing puddle under the bench had grown too sickening to stand.

_Hair, nails, skin, blood, flesh, and eventually breath, all to bind the potion more tightly to her energy_ , listed the monitoring part of his mind, scientifically distant.  _Symbols of the human elements binding it to her life and her pain_.

The rusty tang of blood filled his nose, barely muted by the myriad other odours that would otherwise have been overpowering to his nose, trained to the subtle nuances of smelling potions. His stomach would have rebelled, had he not long ago perfected the art of distancing himself from what he did in order to keep up the appearance of a true Death Eater. He would never pass for one who truly enjoyed this, but he thought he gave the impression of one willing to tolerate anything in the name of power and respect.

"Stand next to the wall," he ordered as kindly as was within his ability. She obeyed his command meekly, staggering slightly as she walked the short distance. He waited for her to reach the spot he had indicated with something approaching patience. She had lost a great deal of blood, after all, and he could afford to make some allowance for that.

A spell bound her to the wall securely, washed-out skin pale against the rough grey stone. He needed her to remain upright through what he would have to do next. Having to struggle with her later would only make his job harder, and her fate had been sealed from the moment Malfoy and Thane had acquired her. There was nothing he could do to save her, and he had accepted it from the beginning. Railing against your fate brought little enough profit, and more pain than it was worth. There would be enough pain for both of them soon enough.

He ensured her bonds were not tight enough to cut. It was all the kindness, small enough in truth, that he could offer.

"Crucio," he whispered, almost soothingly, his wand pointed precisely at her heart, held in a hand that did not dare to tremble. 

Almost distantly, through the deafening sound of her almost inaudible whimpers of agony, he registered that Voldemort was watching them, his red-gleaming eyes intent. There was an avid expression on the inhuman features, the snake-dry tongue flicking out in a vain attempt to moisten thin, cracked, almost bloodlessly pale lips.

He counted off three minutes, the bare minimum given in the book. Had he intended to truly make the potion, it would have been far too weak for Voldemort’s liking. Yet it was almost more than he could bear to hold the curse for.

Then he dropped his wand onto the table just behind him as if it had suddenly become too heavy to hold, somehow managing to avoid the tools and ingredients that littered it. Flexing his fingers subtly to relax them after the near-desperation with which he’d gripped the wand, he spared a moment to hope that the revulsion in that action would not betray him. With any luck, the observers would take it merely as weariness due to the demands of the brewing.

He stepped up to the woman’s still-convulsing body, and gently pressed his lips to her now silently screaming mouth.

He could feel a dozen gazes fixed on him, and endeavoured to ignore them as best he could.

He tried, desperately, not to think of the last time he had been lip to lip with another –  _Harry_. That had been heat and passion, close to perfect, apart from the ending. Nothing like this cold and premeditated corruption of the gesture. Nothing like it.

He lifted the stained knife, insinuated it between them, and tenderly, skilfully slit her throat, the skin and flesh parting with startling ease under the sharp caress of the blade.

She whimpered into his mouth as her blood gushed out over him, sticking revoltingly even through the protection of his robes.

He tried, frantically, not to think of the last person he had kissed –  _Harry_ \- and the so-different feeling of their breaths mingling. 

He was none too successful on all counts. He didn’t know why the idea of thinking of Harry at such a time was almost as vile as the feeling of being covered in blood.

He felt her body go still, one last breath, moist and shockingly cool, sighed into his mouth, almost with thankfulness for her final freedom. He clamped his lips tight around it and pulled away from her, refusing to accept the gratitude.

He was almost drenched in blood, his robes even darker, clinging stickily to his body. Its coppery tang filled the air, drowning out the other scents that had dominated the room as he created the potion.

He bent over the cauldron, gently exhaling their mingled breaths – the victim’s and the tormentor’s essences blended, as the ones who took the potion would become both to themselves - onto the surface of the viscous liquid within. He lifted his wand and spoke the last phrase, allowing only the barest trickle of power to flow through him into the potion.

He lowered his wand tiredly and stepped back from his accomplishment, praying he had done it wrong enough.

It should have turned midnight black, not even admitting the existence of such things as light or colour. Instead, it went a vile, putrid shade that defied all the vocabulary at his disposal. He exhaled a thankful breath as Voldemort stepped closer to examine the results.

The cauldron exploded, showering them both with shards of hot metal and still dangerous, if hopefully for his sake not quite lethal, potion.


	7. Chapter 7

_… leaves thy heart in mine  
With pulses that beat double._

When Severus finally returned to awareness, he found himself chained in a position identical to the one Mary had been in before he had killed her. He had long ago trained himself not to automatically open his eyes when he regained consciousness, and so managed to gain himself a precious few moments of relative peace to analyse the situation in which he now found himself. He still felt woozy from the effects of the explosion. Probably that was due to the noxious effects of the potion that had splattered him, or perhaps because he had been hit by what he vaguely remembered as some rather large pieces of cauldron.

Voldemort sounded, unsurprisingly, most displeased at the outcome of Severus’ attempt to make the potion. He could hear Thane and Pettigrew alternating suggestions of ways to punishing him with other ways they might sow death and discord among ‘the Mudbloods and Muggle-lovers’. He suppressed a sneer at their ideas, and filed the suggestions carefully away to inform Albus of the possibility later. While it wasn’t exactly precise information, having some indication of possible targets and tactics was still far better than no clues at all. From the evidence of his ears, most of the rest of the Death Eaters were also still present, although he couldn’t distinguish Malfoy’s voice. Considering the man’s fondness for being the centre of attention, that probably indicated his absence.

After a few minutes, Severus finally allowed his eyelids to flicker open. From the direction the conversation was starting to take, he judged that if he did not, he would find himself most unpleasantly woken. At length he managed to make his eyes focus, and he found Voldemort almost directly in front of him, his face only inches away from Severus’ own.

"Ah, so glad to have you back with us, Severus," he hissed quietly, menacingly. Severus forbade himself to gulp. "Now, would you care to explain something to me?" Voldemort’s eyes gleamed with expectant malice. 

It was obvious what he thought needed to be explained, but Severus asked anyway. Although there was nothing except perhaps for a few moments more of grace to be gained from stalling, he could not help but try. There was only one real possible outcome, and he would delay it in any way that he could.

"Yes, sir?" Severus said, ensuring that eagerness to please was all that showed in his voice despite the uncomfortable position he was in and his knowledge of what must come.

"What did you do wrong?" Oh, Voldemort was definitely not happy. It was rare for him to show so much open irritation. He was a pupil of the school that held cold menace far more terrifying than open rage. Severus was something of a follower of that discipline himself, though he admitted fury could often get good results too, when correctly applied.

Severus wasn’t  _quite_  lying when he replied. "I… I did nothing wrong, my Lord. I was… merely not powerful enough to harness the potion’s power," he almost whined, in a tone he had learned from Pettigrew. After all, in Voldemort’s eyes ambition and power were very nearly the same thing. Severus’ ambition, while admittedly great, as fitting a Slytherin, had never run to the extremes of sacrificing uncountable lives in the name of revenge and power. That, of course, spared nothing for the obvious facts – attempting to exterminate the Muggles would only end in the loss of the lives of wizards. Lives that could ill be spared. Even the most ambitious of Slytherins, had they any sanity at all, should have been able to see that. Besides, almost half of the children at Hogwarts now came from Muggle or mixed backgrounds. The lines between magic and Muggle were blurring, if slowly, and only fools stood in the way of the inevitable.

In any case, Severus did not expect the explanation or the unctuous tone to do much immediate good. With a little luck, though, it would make his act slightly more convincing, hopefully sparing him a little.

"Indeed?" Voldemort drew back a fraction. "In that case, you have severely misled me, Severus. I had thought you were skilled enough to complete any potion I wished for."

"I am most sorry, my Lord. It was not my skills, but my strength that was lacking." Every time he was forced to contemplate Voldemort with this much immediacy he felt a strange blend of disdain and fear. He had to fight hard to keep it away from his expression. The Dark Lord would read it all too easily at this distance.

"Perhaps." Voldemort was clearly suspicious, but the explanation seemed to have been convincing enough. Or perhaps he merely thought that even now Severus’ abilities were too valuable to allow him to be killed outright. "Still, you have let me down, and will need to be punished appropriately. Unfortunately, I have other matters to attend to, and cannot do it myself. Do not worry yourself though, my  _faithful_  Severus, I will leave you in good hands."

The Dark Lord turned away from Severus fully, and beckoned to Thane, who stepped up beside him eagerly. "You know what to do," was all he said. The Death Eater nodded, and Voldemort walked away, muttering something to Thane just before he left. He and the rest of the Death Eaters dispersed, up the stairs or Disapparating according to their orders, and Severus was left alone in the dark, quiet, suddenly sinister room with Thane.

* * *

"So," began Thane. "The renowned Severus Snape. 

Severus wondered abstractly why Voldemort and all of his more favoured followers felt the need to state the obvious, usually at painstaking – and painful - length. He caught himself, knowing that he was trying to distance himself from his situation, and fought back the urge to make a sardonic comment on the subject.

It would not do to antagonise the man, Severus reminded himself. Thane seemed to have enough reason to want to hurt him already. He had to concentrate on surviving and getting out. Thane would not kill him, but he would in all likelihood not be at all averse to damaging Severus in a permanent manner. Considering just how annoyed Voldemort had been by Severus’ ‘failure’, he would probably have little objection to that as long as Severus’ potion-making abilities were not overly damaged. 

 "Perhaps I should thank you," continued the other man. "After all, I had not expected to get the chance to… practice… on such a famous subject." Certainly reason enough, then.

Severus hadn’t been optimistic about his chances before, but he had to face the fact that this boded most ill for him. He reached once more for his shield, hoping that this time it would turn out to be more resilient than the last. He had worked so hard at reinforcing it that it ought to be able to withstand almost anything.

The meetings he had attended at the end of last term, and over the holiday, had not had this particular result, and so he had not needed to test it. Instead he had, thankfully, been able to gather some useful information, without even the need to pay the price of pain that was so often required. It seemed he would pay for that easy time now.

Thane looked him over with a speculative eye, as if wondering which tactics would be best to use, and what the responses might be. As if Severus were a particularly appetising meal with so many dishes he could barely decide where to start. A meal that he nevertheless had every intention of leaving nothing but scraps of when he was done. Severus fought back a shiver. This was, in any case, better than the alternative – Voldemort.

Wasn’t it?

"I hear that our Lord prefers this spell for punishment," said Thane finally, seeming to have looked and anticipated enough for the moment. Or perhaps he was merely starting to become impatient with Severus’ lack of reaction. "I suppose it will be as good a place as any to begin."

Severus braced himself. At least the man had informed him of the tactic he intended to use. He knew now what to expect. Thane would learn in time, but he was still new to this. Small mercies, Severus reminded himself.

"Anguiso."

* * *

"Ennervate."

Severus shuddered into consciousness with extreme reluctance, his control over his reactions broken enough that he opened his eyes automatically. Thane’s smirking face was the first thing he saw, filling him with the desperate urge to close his eyes and fall back into the relief of oblivion once more. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a viable option. He knew the man would simply ‘Ennervate’ him once more if that happened, and probably would not be best pleased at the need.

"So nice to see you back with me, Severus," Thane said facetiously, after a moment or two of menace, for effect. "If you’re ready, shall we continue with the entertainment?"

Automatically, Severus began cataloguing his status. That the process allowed him to tune out the flood of stereotypical villainesque rhetoric was an unexpected benefit.

He was weak from multiple pain-causing hexes, and feeling the effects of a rather heavy beating. He had some internal injuries for certain, and knife wounds in several places – most light, carefully calculated to cause pain rather than permanent damage, but he would surely have a few new scars for his collection if he survived this. He told himself to stop being melodramatic. It hurt. An enormous amount. But he would survive, as he always did. He was too useful to one side to be killed, too useful to the other to be allowed to die.   He reassured himself of that again. He might be hurt more, but he would not die.

Thane had used some rather creative hexes to ensure that the pain of the various injuries was maximised. He appeared to have a talent for this, if not much practice at it, and a rather heavy hand.

This was certainly one of the most… rigorous… punishments Severus could remember enduring. Even when he included his treatment at Voldemort’s hands, there were few that compared. And it clearly wasn’t over yet. From Thane’s expression, there was a great deal more in store, and the worst of it hadn’t even been approached yet.

His check confirmed his suspicion that the shield was distinctly weaker than it had been before the torture had started, but it appeared to be holding up for now. He automatically redirected what little energy he could spare into reinforcing it. He could at least be certain that Potter wasn’t feeling this, and for that he could be thankful. The boy surely didn’t deserve that, and Severus would do all he could to keep it from him.

While Severus had been unconscious, Thane had been busy collecting other items. Severus’ breath caught as he caught a brief glimpse of some of them. Surely Voldemort hadn’t intended Thane to use those on him! They were only ever used on Muggle prisoners. Only ever used on people that the Dark Lord wouldn’t need alive at the end of the usage.

Thane smiled cruelly, anticipation and brutality clear in every line of the twisted expression. "Our Lord was most displeased with you, Severus," he said, as if it hadn’t been obvious at the time to everyone in the room, and to Severus in particular. "He set no boundaries on me whatsoever. I am afraid you are entirely at my mercy. Although I do have to say I have been disappointed in your reactions so far," he added, as if reprimanding a child.

"Still, I have many more ideas to try," he sounded almost as if he was reassuring himself, although Severus did not find it so at all. "We will see just what reactions you are capable of when completely broken." 

_Shit_. He rather felt he could be forgiven a curse in this situation. It wasn’t as if he didn’t have justification.

"Now, this is a most interesting little toy," said Thane, examining a charmed iron rod, its handle wrapped in leather like a sword-hilt. "I’ve never used it before, so you’ll have to forgive me if I don’t manage to do it quite right the first time." A quiet word from him and the end began to glow red. It could go up to white hot, Severus knew from experience. He had even used it, once; another of the memories that haunted him when he allowed them to. Thane, however, stopped it just as it crossed the line into orange.

"I think a little pattern on your back would do a world of good in reminding you that it is not a good idea to disappoint our master," he said, approaching. Another word rotated Severus to face the wall, exposing his bare back to Thane’s tender mercies. Most of his clothes had fallen victim to the man several hours ago, leaving him not even their slender protection.

When he felt the first touch of the impossibly hot rod against his back, he screamed, long, low and agony-filled. There was nothing he could have done to prevent the reaction had he even tried, and he had ceased to care about his pride long since.

There was precious little rationality left in him, but he knew he needed a way out. Anything. Thane, he now realised with a chilling certainty, would care little if he died, as would his so-called master. Something in what he had done had not, after all, convinced Voldemort, or perhaps the mere fact of his failure had been enough. While he had not been denounced as a traitor – that punishment would have been even worse, as unimaginable as it seemed at that moment – he clearly was no longer seen as valuable enough for his failures to be so easily tolerated as he had foolishly hoped they would be.

There was only one thing left that could, possibly, help him, one last slim chance. In his sudden desperation to reach through the shield, he almost shattered it rather than lowering it correctly. That would have needed more energy and thought than he had to spare at that moment.

He prayed that the boy would hear him, help him as he flung all his pain and fear along the bond. Prayed that the distance between them could be crossed somehow. 

// _Harry!_ //

Severus didn’t know quite what he was asking for. He knew that he did not want Harry to be there in the slightest. That, he was still able to understand, could only end in an even greater disaster, but he needed to escape. Had to get out somehow. Had to get away, before he was killed or crippled by Thane’s idea of appropriate punishment.

He had no idea of how he would be able to do such a thing, or how Harry could help. He had to help.


	8. Chapter 8

_… What I do_   
_And what I dream include thee, as the wine  
 _Must taste of its own grapes.__

// _Harry!_ //

Harry jerked abruptly into wakefulness as his name resounded in his head. The amount of sheer pain and desperation in that fear-filled mental cry left him in no doubt that it was real.

He’d been in the middle of the  _strangest_  dream, he realised vaguely as he half sat up in his bed. He was breathing as hard as if he’d been running for his life for the last hour or more, the sound far too loud in the otherwise silent dormitory. He could feel his heart pounding frantically, the pulse of his blood throbbing in his ears, adding its own contribution to the noise that seemed to surround him all of a sudden.

Momentarily disoriented by the unexpected awakening, he looked around him as if he would find the answer to what had woken him in the soft darkness enclosed by the bed’s curtains. He shook his head slightly, hoping that the action would help to clear it somewhat. Jumbled recollections flooded him as he slowly came back to himself, memories of what he had just dreamed. A dream filled with terrifying, horrifying images; all about Snape and fear and pain and regret and death and still more pain.

Only, he realised, prompted by some instinct, it hadn’t been a dream at all. He was suddenly fully awake, sleep-bleariness banished by the understanding of the vision.

It had been real, and he’d been lying there,  _sleeping_ , while the man he… while Severus had been… been… he couldn’t seem to make himself even think the word. While Harry had still been in the dream it hadn’t felt as immediate to him as the last time, when he had been awake to feel what was done as if he had been the intended victim. He had been somehow more distant this time, and so it had taken a while to hit him.

Yet, despite the distance, he had the feeling, wholly backed up by what he had seen, that what he had just observed had been by far the worse of the two, at least for Severus. Harry hadn’t thought that was even possible, had naively imagined that what he had vicariously experienced the previous time had been the worst Voldemort would do to a man accepted as one of his own, loyal, followers.

Apparently, ‘worse’ was all too possible, as he now appreciated. He felt sick to his stomach at the mere thought that the terrifying, disturbing images in the dream had been real. That they had just happened. Happened to Severus, and been done by him.

That he had… and then been… It was almost more than Harry could bring himself to understand at the moment.

What did he think he was  _doing_? He interrupted his own reverie, suddenly aghast at his reaction to his realisation of the dream’s reality. Severus was about to… to  _die_ , probably, if what Harry had felt in the dream was any indication. And meanwhile, he was sitting here woolgathering as if he had all the time in the world to think about it.

Not now, idiot boy! Sort the rest out once you’ve got him out of there! The irate voice in his head sounded strangely like Severus, but its command didn’t help him figure out just  _how_  he was going to help the man. He racked his brains frantically, trying to think of something, any possibility at all that offered him some chance. He came up completely blank, and the knowledge that Severus’ time was running out didn’t help matters at all.

// _What can I do?_ // he called out, half-despairing, into the echoing silence of his mind. The silence that he had craved, that he had just yesterday thought was the only thing he truly needed, now seemed terrifying in its implication. He promised himself that if this somehow turned out okay, he’d make sure that he and Severus at least started talking again. At least that way, he’d have some warning when the man was about to go off and try to get himself killed.

What was there to do? There was no way he could go to Severus. There was nothing he could do there, even if he knew where ‘there’ was and could get there. Severus wasn’t in any shape to give him directions. There certainly wasn’t anything Harry could do from here. Was there?

As if the thought was a trigger, he felt a strange pulling sensation near his navel. It was, he realised, the same place he’d felt the bond when it had activated nine months ago. Which meant…

In a moment of intuition, realisation of what was about to happen hit him. He had just enough time to hurriedly move slightly to one side before Severus materialised where Harry had been sitting a bare moment ago. He grabbed his wand and put up a hasty silencing charm before turning his attention to the unexpected arrival.

The man was more than half-naked, what was left of his clothes barely more than rags. He was covered in a variety of visible injuries that Harry tried not to look too closely at, and clearly harbouring many less obvious ones. A part of Harry’s mind threw up its arms in horror and started running around in panicked circles at the thought of internal injuries. The rest of him was too busy being thankful that Severus was, at least, still alive. Barely.

Harry was profusely grateful for his silencing charm within seconds as the man groaned loudly and slowly cracked one eye open. He flinched and stared at Harry in near terror for a minute, before he finally whispered his name in a tone of combined revelation and abject relief.

Then he closed his eyes and was still. Harry felt a moment of near-complete panic. He couldn’t be… Just couldn’t…

Harry grabbed control of himself again and gave himself a hard mental shake. He could hear Severus’ breath, a laboured rasping under the frantic pounding of his own blood in his ears, so the man hadn’t died on him yet. But there was no time, and far too much to do, to waste any of it in panic. He tried to figure out what he should do next.  

Switching his wand nervously from hand to hand, Harry ran through his scant knowledge of first aid. He supposed that a standard check of pulse and breathing would be the best thing to do. The checks did reassure him that the man was still alive, but it was clear even to someone as untrained as he was that Severus’ vital signs were not normal, or healthy. He had to get him medical attention, and  _now_ , because there was very little he could do. His rudimentary knowledge of healing charms wouldn’t be much help in so serious a situation, although they could at least help to stabilise Severus slightly, he hoped.

He only allowed himself the briefest moment of indecision before letting go of the silencing charm and casting the strongest healing charm he knew in its stead. He couldn’t call Madam Pomfrey here, it would cause too much of a stir, and Severus would not be happy about it when he found out. Besides, Harry had no idea what things she would need to deal with it. So calling her here would probably just waste time in the end. All of which meant that he needed to get Severus to the hospital wing, and soon.

He couldn’t do it alone. There was only really one thing to do, and if Severus was pissed off about it, well, it couldn’t really make the situation between them any worse, now, could it? And, Harry assured himself, it was certainly better than waking the whole dormitory.

His decision made, he pushed his bed-curtain aside just enough to slip out, and padded over to Ron’s bed.

"Ron," he whispered urgently. "Wake up. I need your help."

* * *

Ron somehow managed to suppress his intense natural curiosity enough that he didn’t ask any questions when he saw the half-dead man lying in his friend’s bed. He didn’t even say anything when he saw the man’s face, although he looked still more bewildered when he recognised him as Professor Snape. Immediately understanding the severity of the situation, he agreed to help Harry without superfluous conversation. The look on his face, though, said clearly that he would be demanding an explanation as soon as the man was safe, and would not be taking no for an answer.

Right then, Harry couldn’t bring himself to care very much, not with all the other problems demanding his attention. Severus could do the explaining when he was better, and if he…  

He cut himself off right there. There wasn’t any point at all in thinking that way, and besides with this bond, you never knew what effect thoughts might have. He’d just been very forcefully reminded of that, and it wasn’t a risk he could afford to take. Not now, when Severus’ position was so obviously delicate. He reminded himself to keep thinking positive thoughts, as hard as it was when faced with the man’s injuries.

Ron, who had proved to be slightly more adept at healing charms than Harry, took charge of that aspect. This left Harry free to cast the charms that would allow them to move Severus without jolting him too much – necessary because, as Ron reminded him, with the marks he bore there was simply no way that he had managed to escape without internal injuries. On several occasions as they moved the man, both of them had to restrain their expressions of shock for fear of waking him when they realised anew the extent of what had been done to him. It was an insight into the Death Eaters, as victims as well as torturers, that would stay with them for a very long time.

Somehow Harry and Ron managed to move the man to the hospital wing without waking up any of their house-mates or encountering anyone else on the way who might have delayed them. There was one close call with Mrs Norris, but they managed to evade Filch by the skin of their teeth. Thankfully, the man didn’t regain consciousness during that nightmarish trip. It seemed hours long to Harry, as he struggled to maintain his concentration as evenly as possible, trying not to aggravate Severus’ injuries.

Harry knocked tentatively on the door to the hospital wing. It took a few moments for Madam Pomfrey to answer the door, moments when he nearly panicked. What if she wasn’t there? What if there’d been some other emergency in the school she’d had to deal with? What would he do then? Would the Headmaster be able to help? What if…

Fortunately for Harry’s sanity, those questions were rendered moot when the matron opened the door, still clearly half-asleep and bemused. She took in the tableau the three of them made in a moment, snapping awake almost instantaneously. She guided them to the nearest unoccupied bed, and Harry lowered Severus onto it under her directions.

Madam Pomfrey quickly cast a powerful healing charm of her own, allowing Ron to relinquish his hold on the one he’d been casting. Ron breathed a sigh of relief as she bustled away to collect her equipment and potions. Harry collapsed into the chair next to the bed, completely forgetting the presence of his friend. Absently he reached for his bond-mate’s hand, wishing that he could somehow perform an energy transfer as he had the last time he had felt Severus being hurt by Voldemort.  

Of course, he had no way of knowing if that would help at all, or merely make the situation worse. Surely this kind of circumstance was what his mother had engineered the bond for? Then why wasn’t it helping him? Why was nothing happening?

"Harry," the worried voice jolted him out of his reverie. "Why are you" Ron gave a significant glance to Harry’s hands, clasped around Severus’ more tightly than he’d realised.

"I… I’ll tell you tomorrow. Or later today, I suppose." Harry bit back a completely incongruous laugh, relaxing his grip slightly. "I just… it’s a long story, and I’d rather not tell it more than once, and Hermione really ought to know too." He gave a sigh of his own.

Ron looked even more puzzled and curious, but just nodded. "Are you coming back to the tower now?"

"Uh… no, I’ll just stay here for a while. See if he’s going to be OK." Harry gave Ron an apologetic look, hoping that his friend would just let it go for the moment. He didn’t need to be coping with problems from him as well.

"Right. I’ll… I’ll see you later on, then?"

"Sure." Harry smiled half-heartedly and turned his attention back to Severus. He barely noticed Ron slipping quietly out.

"What are we going to do?" Harry said quietly to the unconscious man before him. "What can I do?" Images of his not-quite-dream kept flooding back now that the situation wasn’t quite so urgent, but he fought them away. He could figure all that out later – what he’d seen, what it meant, and all the rest of it. For now he knew with an instinct he didn’t question that he needed to have faith in Severus if the bond was to help at all.

Madam Pomfrey returned after a few minutes, and Harry quickly dropped his hands from Severus’. He hoped that he’d managed to do so before she caught sight of it, but it was only a small issue compared to the others. 

"Is he going to be OK?" he asked before the matron could question his continued presence at the man’s bedside. 

"I hope so, Harry," she said kindly as she began to perform incomprehensible actions with the array of arcane items on her tray, "but I really don’t know. Can you call the Headmaster for me, please?" She indicated the fireplace and the communication powder on the mantelpiece.

Once Harry had informed him of the situation, of course leaving out all of the really important details, Dumbledore said that he’d be down instantly. The conversation took a good few minutes and by the time he had finished, Madam Pomfrey was clearing up. Harry wondered vaguely if her request had merely been a tactic to get rid of him for a bit, or if she really needed the Headmaster down there.

"Are you… are you finished?"  _Is that all you can do for him?_ he asked, not sure which answer he wanted.

"Yes. Everything else is up to him now. He should be fine, just with a few more scars to add to his collection." The woman smiled wryly at him, and Harry had the distinct sense that she smiled because the only other option would be to cry. He felt rather the same way himself.

"Oh. Do you… do you mind if I stay here?"

She gave him an extremely curious look at the unexpected request, but shook her head kindly. "No. It’s almost morning anyway; I don’t see that it will do any harm. If the Headmaster says you have to go when he arrives, though, you must."

Harry nodded and sat down next to the bed once more, taking Severus’ hand between his again. Madam Pomfrey smiled benevolently at him. She had not expected so much concern from Harry for such a disliked teacher, but she was glad to see it. As she turned away, she almost thought she saw a faint glow of light sparking fitfully where their hands touched. However, she had a great many other things to worry about, and dismissed it as an unnecessary distraction. She was very tired, and hallucinations were definitely a sign that she needed to get some rest.

"Goodnight, Harry," she said, as she walked into her office, where there was a small bed ready for nights like these. 

Harry fell asleep again within minutes after she had left, his head falling to rest on the mattress, beside their still joined hands. Just before he succumbed to the siren call of sleep, indescribably tempting after the difficult night he’d had, he thought he felt Severus’ faint ‘presence’ grow stronger, and he smiled. It would be all right.

// _It will be all right, Harry._ //


	9. Chapter 9

_… And when I sue  
_ _God for myself, He hears that name of thine,_

A hand tapping his shoulder gently and a quiet, faintly concerned voice calling his name woke Harry from his unexpectedly deep sleep. He blinked his eyes open, anxiously examining Severus for any sign of improvement or distress as soon as he could make them focus. His view was unclear due to his lack of glasses, but he was able to reassure himself that the man was still alive and even looked somewhat better now. The night’s sleep, Madam Pomfrey’s treatment and maybe even Harry’s hand-holding had clearly helped him, leaving him no longer looking half-dead.

Slightly relieved, Harry turned slightly towards the Headmaster, who was standing next to him. He realised that he must be the person who had woken him. Distantly he registered that it appeared to be light outside, enough filtering through the mostly-closed curtains to make the room reasonably bright. They must have let him sleep for quite a while, he thought, as another part of his mind tried to figure out how to answer Dumbledore’s inevitable questions. The Headmaster’s hand was still resting on his shoulder, and its weight felt rather like a restraint to Harry’s mildly guilty conscience.

He began to speak, but only managed to get out a "Headmaster…" before he stopped himself again. He had no idea what to say, and if he tried to explain himself he'd probably just end up getting himself in trouble.  If he wasn't already.

"Good morning, Harry," the Headmaster replied cordially, finally lifting his hand away. "I was rather hoping you could tell me something about why you were the one to bring Professor Snape here last night." The glance he flicked towards their still joined hands showed the other questions he wanted to ask.

"Oh," Harry drew his hand away and turned to face the old wizard fully. The strange feeling of guilt he felt intensified. He couldn’t tell if that was because he’d been caught holding Severus’ hand – by the Headmaster, of all people, and he suddenly remembered that Madam Pomfrey had probably seen last night as well. Or maybe it was because he’d automatically let go as soon as he was reminded about it.

Harry had the sudden urge to just give in, confess everything to Dumbledore, and beg wholeheartedly for forgiveness, even though none of it was his fault. He beat the unexpected impulse back, knowing that Severus would be extremely unhappy with him if he was to do that. Especially if Harry was to do something like that while the man was unconscious and unable to give his opinion or defend himself. And he didn’t  _really_ want to explain himself anyway. It just seemed so much easier than hiding, all of a sudden.

"Well, it’s not really my story to tell completely," he excused himself hastily. "Professor Snape really ought to be awake when I tell you, because it’s his too. And… well, Ron helped me last night and I promised him that I’d explain everything to him, so he ought to be here too." Harry spotted his glasses on the bedside table and put them on. He was glad for the excuse to look away from the Headmaster, and he felt much more assured once they were in place and he could see clearly.

"Very well." Dumbledore appeared satisfied with Harry’s cobbled-together assortment of excuses for the moment, although Harry knew it wasn’t safe to take him at face value. He was probably already planning how to pry information out of Severus and Harry. "In that case," continued the old wizard, "why don’t you go down to the Great Hall for some breakfast? You should just have time to shower and change."

"Uh, OK. He’s going to be all right?" Harry had to know that before he could leave in good conscience. If only so that he could be sure that he wouldn’t have to answer the inevitable questions by himself.

"Yes. He’s just sleeping now, regaining some strength after the healing charms," Dumbledore reassured him, patting his shoulder again. "In fact, Poppy’s quite amazed at how much he’s improved overnight. He should be perfectly fine when he wakes up, as long as he gets some rest."

"Oh. Good. I’ll, uh, be going then," Harry said, suddenly glad to be making his escape so easily.

"Be sure to come back here after breakfast, Harry. Bring Ron and Hermione if you think they’ll need to hear your explanation too." Dumbledore smiled encouragingly at him, but it only served to remind firmly Harry that his escape was only temporary.

"Yes, sir. Thank you," he said, standing. He felt oddly reluctant at the thought of leaving, despite his eagerness to get away from the Headmaster and his questions. He decided that the reluctance was probably just the bond working again, and there would definitely be an interrogation if he stayed, so he ignored the feeling as best he could.

"It’s nothing to thank me for, Harry." The sorrowful look the Headmaster gave Severus showed plainly just why he felt undeserving of gratitude.

As he left the hospital wing, Harry decided to be grateful for the reprieve and not worry too much about what he would do when the time to explain came around again. Hopefully by then he’d have Severus to help him. Not that the man  _would_  be much help, knowing him, but it was also about the only hope Harry had. He repressed a sigh.

* * *

Harry returned to the hospital wing with Ron and Hermione in tow. They’d been easily lured by the promise of explanations at long last. Severus was sitting up in bed, talking intently to Professor Dumbledore, when they entered. Harry was filled with mixed feelings on seeing him, clearly feeling better.

On one hand, he was glad of the proof that the man was really all right, but it also meant that he’d have to face him. He didn’t just have the old problems to deal with now, but with the new realisations from last night too. Severus was just so much easier to deal with when he was battered and unconscious, generally helpless and unable to flay Harry verbally for only doing what he thought was the right thing.

Perhaps that was an unworthy thought, but that didn’t stop him thinking it, and didn’t stop it being true.

As they approached, pausing a few feet from the bed, Severus turned to look at them. Harry’s breath caught at the sheer exasperation in the ‘What are  _they_  doing here?’ glare that was bestowed on him, and by extension, his friends. He felt his mouth twist into a wry smile. Why assume anything had changed between them – changed back, even – just because Harry had saved his life last night?

Severus turned back to Dumbledore. "Headmaster, perhaps Potter needs to be here to explain himself to you, but I fail to understand the necessity for the presence of his… sidekicks."

Harry almost gasped at the sheer injustice of that sentence.  _He_  was the one who had to  _explain_  himself, after he’d given his help when Severus had  _asked_  for it? Well, maybe ‘asked’ wasn’t quite the right word, but he sure as hell hadn’t been in any position to demand then. He exerted a considerable amount of will to keep his mouth from gaping open.

"Poppy informs me that Harry would have been unable to bring you here last night without Ron’s assistance." Luckily, Dumbledore defended Harry, because he was too outraged to say anything in reply to that himself. 

Severus gave Ron an unmistakably surprised glance before his eyes faded back to characteristic coolness, and he looked back at the Headmaster. "Indeed?" he asked, more than a little sceptically.

"Yes," Harry interrupted. Severus ignored him.

Once again, Harry found himself wondering why on earth he still felt what he did for the man. His mind insisted, traitorously, on flinging up images of their friendship, and that one kiss, which had admittedly been rather wonderful. Right up till Severus said his mother’s name. While Harry was distracted by that, his mind brought up some of the other things he’d been avoiding thinking about for good measure. He pulled his mind back on track impatiently.  _Immediate problems_ , he reminded himself.  _One thing at a time._

Ron was starting to look annoyed with the man’s ungratefulness and Harry agreed completely with the sentiment. Hermione merely looked very curious. Ron had, apparently, told her all about last night’s little adventure, and she was doubtless storing away all the little bits and pieces of evidence they were giving her to put together afterwards. Bits and pieces Harry at least was sure he didn’t’ even know he was providing.

"At any rate," said the Headmaster, "I gather that Harry promised Ron an explanation in gratitude for his assistance."  _In helping to save your life_  was unsaid, but Harry was certain that everyone in the room heard it anyway. Severus scowled at the reminder.

"I felt it unwise to exclude Hermione," Dumbledore continued, as if he had not noticed the infuriated expression on his Potions master’s face. He twinkled cheerfully at the three Gryffindors.

Severus glared at Harry again, but said nothing. Probably he dared not, after Dumbledore’s defence of them, and his justification of Ron and Hermione’s presence.

"Sit down, children," Dumbledore said encouragingly. He indicated the chairs that had been added across the bed from him, and they took them quickly. "Now Severus, Harry, I believe you have some explanations for us?"

* * *

Harry felt an unexpected, tentative contact. // _Harry._ // 

// _What do you want?_ // He attempted to put as much disdain as possible into his mental voice. Maybe it was just a bit childish, he admitted to himself, but Severus had started it, after all. So he felt that it was perfectly justified. If the man had the right to be petulant, then so did he. After all, Severus was twenty years older than him.

// _We need a story._ // It was a statement, not a request or an offer of cooperation, but Harry had a requirement of his own.

// _Just the… the essentials.//_  He replied firmly. // _I know we can’t tell them everything, but I’m not going to lie to my friends._ //

Severus gave him the mental equivalent of a raised eyebrow, but assented without argument. Harry wondered if he ought to be suspicious, and decided that the answer was ‘Always’.

* * *

Their mental conversation had lasted mere moments. Harry dared a quick questioning glance over at the man sitting in the bed, and got a ‘you first’ look in answer.

"Well, um," he began hesitantly, finding himself wishing that Severus had wanted to take control of the conversation from the beginning. Harry really didn’t want to be in charge of trying to explain this. He looked over the bed – and the lump of Severus’ legs - at Dumbledore. He thought it would be easier than watching his friends as he tried to explain the decidedly peculiar situation. Even without mentioning the complications, he was realising all over again just how odd it was as he tried to put it into words.

"You know my mother and Professor Snape were, um, friends," he started. The Headmaster nodded encouragingly, probably sensing his nervousness and struggle for the right words.

Harry swallowed, and continued. "Well, with your… plan," Dumbledore nodded again to indicate that he understood. Harry was tempted to look at what Hermione thought of that bit of evasion, but resisted the temptation. 

"She thought he might need some, er, some help," he picked up the explanation once more. "So she used some old spell that she found and she bound her blood to his, or something. Me to him, as it turns out, because she didn’t manage to fulfil the conditions that she set, and she’d designed it to pass it on to the children."

Harry gave in and looked around to see how everyone was taking it. Even Dumbledore looked vaguely surprised by Harry’s startling disclosure. Ron was close to gaping, while Hermione appeared absolutely intrigued. Harry suspected that he’d have to spend a lot of time over the next few days avoiding her questions if they were to keep any part of this a secret.

"Well anyway," he continued hurriedly, "I found out about this, this bond on my last birthday when it, er, activated. Um, when I got back to school I spoke to Professor Snape and we sort of figured out how to block it, although it took a while." He was carefully picking his way through the truth without actually giving too much away, explaining the absolute minimum. It was starting to give him a headache, and he resisted the urge to rub at his temples.

He glanced over at his friends. "That’s why I had to have so much ‘tutoring’ last term," he explained, before returning his gaze to Dumbledore. "Anyhow, once we figured out how to control it…"

Snape interrupted. "Once we had discovered a suitable method of shielding the bond from interfering with our everyday lives, there was no longer any need to spend time together, particularly as it appeared to have little practical use. Therefore, I informed Mr Potter that it was clearly a waste of time to attempt to find a use for it, and we were able to stop spending time in each other’s company."

Harry had to expend a great deal of effort to keep an unruffled face. // _You…_ //

// _You told me you would not lie to your friends. I am merely relieving you of that distasteful task,_ // Severus said coldly. Harry refused to notice that there was perhaps a hint of concern in the sentence, an undertone of wanting to prevent him from betraying his principles.

// _Well, stop,_ // he snapped, unwilling to accept help from the man who had been so obviously unhappy to be helped by him. 

// _Would you rather tell them the whole truth?_ // There was more than a hint of scorn in the question. Harry ignored it, because he knew that he was comfortable with neither answer, and returned to telling the story.

"Anyway, last night, while I was sleeping, I had a… an odd feeling." No real need to go into his dream right now, and it  _had_  left him feeling decidedly strange, after all. He tried not to think about how what he’d just said would be read by his listeners, but Severus had no such compunctions.

// _Lying by omission, Potter. I’m impressed._ // Sarcasm, but also truth.

Harry resolutely ignored him, continuing to recount the events of the previous night, determined to get through them as quickly as possible. "I woke up and Professor Snape sort of appeared next to me. It was… like Apparating, except it couldn’t have been, obviously." He shrugged and looked up to see the Headmaster nodding again. "I saw how he looked, and I knew he needed to get here. I knew I wouldn’t be able to do it myself so I woke Ron to get him to help me."

All five of them were silent for a moment, the three listeners digesting what they had just heard. Finally Dumbledore said, "I suppose that explains the unusually fast healing, if Lily used the spell I suspect. It was a good thing you stayed with him last night, Harry."

Harry felt distinct surprise from Severus. Had he not realised? Harry snorted mentally. Of course not. That would mean that he owed Harry something else, and he’d want to avoid knowing that at all costs.

"And… uh, that was why the hand-holding?" asked Ron, with relief.

Even more surprise. Harry would have been amused, but he wasn’t about to forgive Severus for… well, for anything at all just yet. Besides, he had many more pressing problems. Deciding that there was no way that Ron, let alone anyone else, would be able to handle the truth right now, Harry went for the easy answer. "Um, yes."

"Oh. Er, good." Ron was close to stammering. 

Harry smiled, as expected. It helped that he found the look of sheer relief on his friend’s face honestly funny.

"I’m sure that you will want to do other things with your Sunday," suggested Dumbledore after a few thoughtful moments. "Harry, I will need to see you and Severus later on, however. Perhaps after dinner?"

"Yes, sir."

* * *

As they were walking out, Harry felt another tentative contact.

// _Harry, we need to talk._ // The mental voice was distinctly unsure, but it carried a surprising amount of hope.

// _Yes, I think we do,_ // Harry agreed. He hadn’t really expected this overture, though if he had to admit it, he had hoped for it a little. There were many things he wanted to say to Severus, but he hadn’t wanted to make the first move. It would have felt too much like giving in.

Wry. // _Well, you know where to find me._ //

Neutral.// _Yes._ //


	10. Chapter 10

_And sees within my eyes the tears of two._

Hermione of course had a whole host of questions to ask Harry just as soon as they were a decent distance from the hospital wing. He avoided answering them as best he could, offering her a variety of completely credible excuses in lieu of any real answers. It was clear to him that she believed none of them, but she had no choice but to accept them. Faced with his continued evasion, she eventually gave up, understanding that he was going to tell her nothing more. Harry was relieved, but could see that she realised that if she wanted to know more, the only real way was to figure it out for herself.

Knowing her, he rather thought that she had merely decided to take this as a challenge, and it worried him a little. He knew what Hermione could be like when she had a new problem to solve – downright dangerous, was what. He’d have to remember to be especially careful around her, because there were a great many things he didn’t want to have to explain to her. But then, he’d had to watch what he said and did around his friends in general, and Hermione in particular, for almost a year now. It should really have been almost second nature to him by now.

He sighed, realising that telling them what he had would only make them curious. At the same time, it would make it harder for him to avoid answering their questions. It seemed that if you revealed one secret, you discovered you had a dozen more to keep in its place.

He thought about Severus’ request for a while. Actually, it didn’t need much thinking about – Harry knew he would talk to him – but it made him feel better to  _pretend_  that it needed thought. Then he had to try to get away from Ron and Hermione so he could make his visit.

Harry finally managed to evade their company halfway through the afternoon, and hurried to the infirmary. One or both of them had been sticking almost worryingly close to him all day, perhaps out of sheer perversity. Or maybe they had expected that he’d need to make this visit at some point and wished to accompany him - or ward him off. Neither of them, he thought, could really be as accepting as they were seeming to be. 

At any rate, it was definitely about time he and Severus had a talk, now that they both seemed to be ready at last to face the hundred or more things that still floated unresolved between them. Madam Pomfrey let him in with barely more than a curious glance. Probably the Headmaster had had a word with her, or perhaps she felt that Harry had a right to visit after spending the night holding Severus’ hand.

Severus was half-sitting up in the bed reading a book titled in a language Harry didn’t recognise. A pile of pillows was propped behind him to support his back and the covers were down around his waist, revealing that he was wearing a nightshirt. It looked very similar to the one Harry had seen him wearing the night Harry had been caught in the steps in his fourth year.

Harry sat himself down in the chair next to the bed, and politely inquired if Severus was feeling any better now.

"Much," the man replied neutrally, marking his place and putting the book aside. Then they looked at each other in silence and more than a hint of unease for a while. Harry tried to look Severus in the eye, but all he seemed able to manage was to stare at his chin, and hope it didn’t look as if he was trying to avoid his gaze. He could feel Severus’ eyes on him, and it made him want to fidget almost desperately.

"So," they began at the same time, when neither of them could stand the quiet any longer. They both broke off, and Harry laughed nervously, wondering vaguely if it was possible to blame it on the bond. Severus’ lips quirked slightly too, although Harry couldn’t tell whether the action was due to amusement, apprehension or something else. After a moment, Severus gestured for him to say what was on his mind.

Harry started again, staring down at his hands as if they contained the deepest secrets of the universe, or as if they could save him from this conversation. Perhaps he wasn’t as ready to face this as he’d thought.

"You know, I’m really confused," he said eventually. He’d been wanting to tell Severus – tell  _someone_  – this all day, but now he fought back an almost sickening sense of déjà vu when he realised the similarity this conversation bore to one he had ‘seen’ the other man have with his mother long ago, but continued regardless. It was far too late to pull back now, and not only from the discussion. He was in this too deep. He had been even before he was born, ever since his mother had cast that spell. He felt another wave of resentment, and let it wash over him, letting it give him the courage to keep speaking.

"You ignore me for months," he accused the man, trying his hardest not to whine, but suspecting that he wasn’t having too much success. "You act as if I offered you the greatest insult possible, but all I did was help you. But in the conversations that no one can overhear, in those you act just as if… as if nothing happened, as if we’re still friends. And then you suggest we need to talk as if we’ve been doing it every day, and it’s nothing special." He sighed quietly. "I just… I don’t understand at all."

He broke off before his speech turned into an apology for being too young or gullible to be allowed to know what on earth Severus thought he was doing. As for what had happened after… that… Well, there was no point even thinking about that now. No matter that the thoughts, and the memory, wouldn’t leave him alone.

Severus sighed too. "Potter." He caught himself almost immediately, his brow creasing slightly. "No, I suppose you’re Harry again." He paused once more, as if considering this, before he began to speak again.

"For your actions last night, I am as grateful as I am capable of being, considering the likely outcomes. I did ask for your help, and you gave it, for which I accept that I owe you a debt. As to your concerns: we will not discuss… what you said and did that day. At any time."

Harry supposed the half-thanks were an improvement over being insulted, but not really much of one at all. Well, it wasn’t as if he’d expected a lot of gratitude from Severus, he reminded himself. Therefore, there was no point at all in feeling hurt. He didn’t – exactly – want the man feeling he ‘owed’ him anything either, but there wasn’t much he could do about that either. There wasn’t much he could do about  _anything_.

"As for ignoring you, I hasten to remind you that it was not one-sided at all and I suspect that is, or was, both of our faults to some extent. Perhaps we both made some wrong decisions." Wow. Severus’ acceptance that he was to blame, at least partly, came close to shocking Harry. On the other hand, he was moving on from it quite quickly. _That_  wasn’t much of a surprise. 

"Frankly, we do not have the time needed to hash all of that out right now. Not if we want to keep some secrets from Albus, at any rate. What is far more important now is that we decide what we are going to tell him. Do not doubt it, he will certainly have more questions for us." Severus paused, fumbling for the glass of water on the bedside table, just out of reach. Harry handed it to him without thinking, and the man nodded his thanks, sipping from it before he continued.

"For once, though I hate to say it, I am grateful that your friends were there this afternoon. It has at least given us some time to prepare a strategy to deal with him. I know that where his curiosity is piqued, he is physically incapable of taking no for an answer, and anything that he suspects might be of use against Voldemort will surely interest him. That we are the people involved will only make it a more appealing subject to him, as I’m sure you realise. I for one do not have the strength to resist his investigation at the moment, and certainly none to waste on less immediate concerns."

"Fine," Harry replied when the man finally stopped speaking. As Severus had said, the fewer things he had to deal with now, the better. "What  _are_  we going to tell him then?"

The man looked slightly taken aback by his quick assent, but evidently didn’t intend to let it distract him from beginning to explain his plan. "Very well. You will let me do the talking. If he asks you a question, you will give an answer that fits with what I have said up to that point. I will give you further instructions if they are necessary."

"And you expect that to satisfy me?" Harry said, hoping that he’d made it very clear that it didn’t even come close.

"Yes." Severus was being unusually dense. Or, more likely, he was hoping that if he sounded certain enough, Harry would be content with the lack of explanation. Not today.

"No," he replied firmly.

"No?" Severus raised his eyebrow at Harry, surprised.

"No. What part of that is difficult for you?" Harry snapped. This was his secret too and he deserved to be told what Severus had planned. He was sick of being treated like a child.

"I need to know what you’re planning to say. If only so that I don’t screw it up later on," he said bitterly, injecting as much sarcasm as he could into the last sentence.

The man sighed again. "Very well. We have no choice but to admit to… a mental connection, but we say that it is only of use at times of great stress. We tell him that last night, I was punished by… by Voldemort, for certain actions I… failed to take." Severus halted, seeming to search for his composure. Harry found himself sincerely wishing he needed to ask about the events, rather than having seen them in his dreams.

After a few seconds, Severus continued more fluently. "Because of the severity of the punishment, I unintentionally called for your help, and you answered instinctively. The bond would not let you do otherwise. He will most probably ask why we did not tell him of the bond at the time we discovered it. We will say that it was because of the fact that then it appeared to be more of an inconvenience than something of any practical use.

"We should also make it clear that we were able to deal with the bond quite quickly by ourselves after we realised its existence. We will also have to restate that it appears to have no real purpose except in times when one or the other of us is in danger. Otherwise, he’ll probably want to dissect us in order to find out ways to turn it into an advantage." Apprehension laced his voice, surprising Harry. Severus seemed to have detected his surprise, because he explained his feelings.

"The Headmaster is without doubt one of the best men I know, but he will not allow thoughts of friendship - or even our safety - to stand in the way of his use of a new weapon against Voldemort. You of all people should know this by now." The man fixed Harry with a sharp look, and he found himself nodding without ever having exactly intended to.

"At any rate, this explanation is in places a… little free with the truth. Knowing your dislike of such things, I decided it would be best for me to tell Albus most of this." 

"OK. I can go along with that." Harry had no problem with agreeing now that Severus had explained his reasoning. It was, though, useful to remind the man that he did have a mind of his own, and Severus couldn’t just get used to ordering him around and expecting him to obey.

"Good," replied Severus. Surprisingly, there was nothing in his tone to indicate that he was disgruntled by having to explain himself.

"Oh… and I’m glad you’re feeling better," Harry added slightly belatedly, both because it was the done thing to say and because it was the truth.

"As am I." There was a very long pause, but Harry got the distinct feeling that the man wasn’t quite finished with him yet.

"And I suppose I ought to thank you properly for… for getting me out of there and bringing me here yesterday. And for staying with me and letting the bond help with the healing," Severus finally managed to articulate through gritted teeth. He looked rather as if it had caused him physical pain to say those few words, where a minute ago he had been making speeches.

It was almost,  _almost_ , funny. "You’re welcome. I was happy to help." He allowed only the barest hint of a smile to show to prove that he meant it wholeheartedly. As annoying as the man was, it was much more pleasant to have him alive. He rather suspected he’d miss him even more otherwise, and it was still bizarre to think about missing _Snape_. Let alone other things that he wasn’t going to think about now.

"Well, if that’s everything, I should probably go," Harry continued. He hoped that he hadn’t paused too long while he allowed his thoughts to wander. "Ron and Hermione will probably be looking for me. I practically had to recreate ‘Escape from Alcatraz’ to get away from them."

Severus raised an eyebrow at him. "Muggle movie," explained Harry. Seeing continued incomprehension on the man’s face, he added a short, "Never mind." After all, it wasn’t as if Severus, with his purely wizarding upbringing, would have any sort of idea what a movie even was. He didn’t have the time to spend in explaining it, and then the particular reference. 

"Right." The man shook his head, resigning himself to being bewildered by Harry’s references to modern Muggle culture. Lily had told him about ‘movies’, but she’d never mentioned that particular one.

"See you after dinner, then." Harry got up, stretching slightly before making for the door.

"Yes," Severus replied, as neutrally as he could manage. He knew what he had to say next, and wasn’t looking forward to it.

// _And Harry?_ // he added after a few moments, when the boy was almost at the door.

// _Yes?_ // Harry half-turned, facing the man in the bed again.

// _I would… appreciate it if we could be… friends again._ // Severus wasn’t looking at him any more, but hope and nervousness came across plainly with the communication.

Harry could tell just how much that admission-cum-request had cost the man, not to mention the knowledge that Harry would feel the emotions that went with it. // _Yes._ // Harry allowed himself a smile as he opened the door and walked out into the corridor.

// _Well?_ // The man sounded impatient now, and a little put out.

// _That_ was _my answer, Severus,_ // he said, with a mental smirk.

// _Oh._ // Harry closed the door and left him like that, as close to dumbstruck as he thought it was possible for the man ever to get.


	11. Chapter 11

_IX_  
 _Can it be right to give what I can give?_

Severus couldn’t help a slight smile as Harry’s last comment reached him. More than anything they had actually said, it was the tone of the mental conversation they’d just had that really showed they could be friends again. It was faintly – perhaps more than that, if he was to be completely honest with himself - disturbing how much that thought pleased him. Then again, if he had learnt nothing else on his abortive holiday, he had realised that he… liked the boy, and that nothing either of them would do could change that. Considering the link between them, it should have been unsurprising, and not nearly so comforting, to realise that Harry probably felt much the same.

He shifted restively, trying to make a more comfortable space in the pillows supporting his tense shoulders. He reached over to the table for his book, opened it to the marked page, and attempted to read. He stared blankly at the printed words without registering their meaning, turning a page every now and then out of sheer habit.

There were other things he had to think about as well, although they too were related to the previous realisation. Things he needed to resolve in his own mind before either Albus, or worse, the boy, could ask him about them. Things like exactly what he  _did_  feel for Harry. ‘Liking’, although all he’d admitted, wasn’t  _quite_  the right word, he knew deep down.

_I think I could love you._

It had been months ago. It was most strange, then, the way he could remember everything about the way that it had been said. The tone of Harry’s voice as he spoke the first few words, and the mental overtones that had accompanied the confession, rang as clear in his mind as they had that day. Just as clear as the sincerity that had been in Harry’s eyes, if he dared to let himself remember it, believe it.  

That the boy now had apparently forgiven him for his actions – he did not know if he deserved to be forgiven at all - seemed to say that although Harry had agreed – suspiciously easily, in Severus’ opinion - not to speak about it, he had not completely abandoned those feelings. Severus wasn’t sure if he was more exasperated or relieved by that thought.

It was most likely a little of both. No one would ever dare to claim that their… relationship, if that was the correct word… was an easy one.

The real question that needed to be answered now, however, was what Severus thought about all of it. That was something not nearly so easily answered as asked. Lying and thinking, his hands absently turning pages, Severus lost track of the time.

He looked up some time later to note in considerable surprise that it was almost time for dinner. Soon, doubtless, Albus would be summoning him to his office for the dreaded conversation. He almost,  _almost_  wished that something, anything, no matter how terrible, would happen so that he could avoid that necessity. His experience of just  _how_ terrible things could get, however, prevented him from truly desiring that.

What had he to show for that time spent in meandering thought? He had at long last forced himself to admit that, yes, he did love Harry in some way. He couldn’t yet tell of what type that nebulous ‘love’ was, though. Perhaps he had somehow fallen in love with him – his student, Lily’s son, a child, a male - as instinctively as he initially had flinched from the thought.

Perhaps he merely cared about Harry, loved him as a friend, or even a son or brother. That was easier to contemplate.

Well, maybe there was no ‘merely’ when considering this question, but it certainly could have been something else than… than what Harry had meant when he claimed to love him. He couldn’t tell either whether the feeling was the effect of the bond, because the boy  _was_  Lily’s son, because he reminded him so much of Lily. It could have been for one or a combination of those reasons or a thousand other possibilities.

Then there was the question of whether he was attracted to Harry. Harry, who he still could not help but refer to as ‘the boy’ in his thoughts – another concern he would have to face at some point. His response to their one and only kiss would seem to have answered that, but it could also have been due to any of those thousand things already mentioned.  

He had certainly never been seriously attracted to any male before, had been truly attracted to very few women since  _her_  in reality. He couldn’t help but make denigrating comparisons, and while he hadn’t been quite celibate, he had been close to it. In fact, from what he’d gathered during their conversations, he had the rather disconcerting suspicion that Harry might well have more experience than him, or at least more knowledge, about the processes of intimacy between men.

There were countless other issues, of course, both between them and those which had little to do with Harry. However, the knowledge of which ones he would have to deal with soonest hung on the answers to those two questions. He could not even begin trying to consider them without first solving those insoluble problems. He sighed, a sardonic smile twisting his lips without the slightest hint of humour behind it.

It was almost time to meet Albus, and not incidentally, see Harry again, and he’d gotten almost nowhere. Everything in the last several months had been conspiring, it seemed, to ensure that he had no peace of mind or clarity of thought.

He really looked at the book in his hands for the first time since he’d picked it up and blinked at finding himself about thirty pages ahead of the one he last remembered reading. He turned back with a sigh, hoping to calm himself with a little reading before he had to face the lions.

* * *

Harry arrived at the Headmaster’s study immediately after dinner and tapped gently on the closed door. When Dumbledore opened the door for him, he saw a faintly scowling Severus already seated in front of the old wizard’s desk, sipping from a teacup. This time, rather than ignoring Harry’s entrance or snapping something irascible, he offered a nod and an almost-smile of greeting. Harry smiled back as he entered the room, relieved that Severus hadn’t suddenly changed his mind about their status. He’d come up with that possibility in the intervening hours, and worried about it a little.

"Do come in and have a seat, Harry. Would you like some tea?" said Dumbledore cheerily. However, not all the twinkling and affable hospitality in the world could disguise his keen eyes observing and analysing the interplay between his two ‘guests’. He noticed that it was unusually pleasant, particularly notable since they were not alone. Even last term, when he knew they had been friends, they had taken care to keep up the appearance of continued hostility. It was telling, then, that they seemed to have laid it aside now.

"Thank you, sir. Yes, please," Harry replied gratefully. Between the Headmaster and Severus, he’d learned to appreciate the myriad uses of a cup of tea. They didn’t all have to do with drinking from it.

Harry accepted the cup that the Headmaster handed to him. It was steaming slightly, and smelled wonderful despite his full stomach. Juggling it carefully, Harry took the chair beside Severus. If he had dared, he could have reached out with his free hand and brushed the man’s arm.

He wasn’t supposed to be thinking things like that, he reminded himself sternly. They had just barely friends become again. He had… many things he needed to think about, to deal with, after what he’d seen in his dream last night. He had to do that before he could decide how he really felt about Severus. He shouldn’t try to get himself into something he’d surely regret later, even if the man allowed it, which he almost certainly wouldn’t. He surely shouldn’t do it, probably shouldn’t even  _think_  it, in front of _Dumbledore_!

He decided that he should definitely avoid anything involving debating in future, since not even he found himself terribly persuasive.

Harry and Severus looked at the Headmaster silently, with almost identically questioning expressions open on their faces. Severus was waiting to see what the old man would say, and Harry was for now sticking by his agreement to wait for Severus’ cue before saying anything.

Finally Dumbledore tired of watching them from behind his teacup, or perhaps he felt that there was no more information to be gathered from their silence. He played his opening gambit. "Lemon drop?" he asked, offering round the dish.

"No?" he said with some surprise, as they both shook their heads. "Well, perhaps we should get to the purpose of this little meeting then." He smiled at them yet again.  

"I am extremely glad to see that both of you seem to have decided to be polite to each other once more," he commented as if offhandedly. The cheerful tone he used made it appear half-joking, but there was a definite seriousness in his expression.

Harry flushed faintly, half-opening his mouth to say something. He managed to remain silent with an effort, as Severus replied instead. "You did emphasise the importance of gratitude to me, after all, and that I owed some to Po… to Harry, after his efforts to help me."

"Then it also makes me very happy to see you paying such close heed to my advice, my boy." The knowing twinkle in the Headmaster’s eyes showed that he knew very well that Severus’ apparent deference to his wishes had precisely nothing to do with their reformed friendship.

After its tentative beginning, Harry watched while the conversation played out much as Severus had anticipated. He answered the few questions directed specifically at him as best he could, and for the rest of the time took the opportunity to observe a rare clash of wills.

The Headmaster obviously got the better of it. He pulled information out of his younger opponent with a breathtaking combination of probity, kindness and sheer blunt persistence, not to mention the strategic offering of refreshments; yet the professor managed to give away very little more than he had told Harry he intended to. It was very odd to be thinking of Severus as young, Harry thought vaguely.

Nevertheless, Harry somehow had the feeling that even Severus’ small victories were not due to the plan he had made. He rather thought the professor was only able to keep some of his secrets because Dumbledore was, for some reason of his own, letting him get away with not being completely open.

Before Harry realised it, a considerable amount of time managed to pass. Severus eventually reminded Dumbledore that he had to teach and Harry had lessons the next day, and they were excused. But not before the Headmaster got in one last bit of advice.

"Harry, Severus, please listen to this carefully," he said, leaning forward on his desk, fixing each of them with a grave look.  

"I am willing to let whatever is between you take its course. I can naturally appreciate – and give some allowance for - just how stressful the discovery and management of this bond must have been for you. However, whatever happened between you at the end of last term could have had serious consequences for more people than just yourselves. I know that you have not told me about everything. I am also willing to understand this – I do not expect you to gladly reveal  _all_  of your secrets to me, especially not ones as complicated as this." He paused, looking them in the eyes in turn so intensely that Harry could almost feel him rifling through his thoughts.

"Nonetheless, I  _will_  insist that you sort out whatever is causing the new friction between the two of you. I’m sure you understand that I have to keep everyone’s interests at heart." The old wizard leaned back in his chair, his affable mask falling neatly back into place so that Harry could barely believe it had ever been removed. When Severus asked if he could finally leave, Dumbledore nodded tiredly.

Severus swept out as soon as he was given permission, without even the exchange of pleasantries before he left. Harry remained to thank the Headmaster for the tea and to bid him goodnight, fielding another question or two while he was alone. When he made it down to the bottom of the stairs and the gargoyle had closed behind him, Severus appeared again out of one of the shadows. Harry jumped at his bond-mate’s sudden materialisation, startled out of his contemplation of Dumbledore’s last words.

"Don’t  _do_  that," he muttered irritably. "I think you just scared me out of a year of my life!"

Severus crossed his arms over his chest, and looked down at him with a disdainful expression. "I would have thought that someone being hunted by Voldemort would be more aware of his surroundings."

"I’m in Hogwarts, Severus. The safest place in the world, probably," Harry grumped, glaring right back.

"Not completely safe. If I’m not proof of that, you should at least consider Barty Crouch, for example."

Harry let both parts of that go, not wanting to get into an argument in the middle of the corridor, right in front of Dumbledore’s office. Even if Severus did seem to be spoiling for one. "What did you want, anyway? I assume you  _did_  have a reason for lurking in ambush for me?" 

"You heard what the Headmaster said, Harry. I cannot exactly deny that we have… some issues that need to deal with. I suspect that by now they are visible even to the blindest of people," Severus said wryly. Harry could see him relax slightly, as if he was relieved that Harry wasn’t going to comment on his previous statement.

"I suggest we resume the extra tutoring sessions. They should be useful to you, and will give us some time to… discuss things. Before you arrived, Albus was suggesting something along those lines to me, and I am inclined to agree with him. Not to mention that they will be something to tell Albus when he asks about progress, as he surely will."

"Okay." Harry wasn’t about to refuse a chance to see Severus, now that they had an understanding again, especially if it would give them a chance to talk. "I’ll see you tomorrow, then? Is after dinner okay?"

"Yes. We can talk about the practicalities then." The man offered him another one of those half-smiles and vanished as thoroughly as if he’d become one of the shadows he so closely resembled.

Harry had a great many things to think about as he walked slowly back to Gryffindor Tower. There he evaded his friends’ questions as best he could before retiring to bed to brood once more.


	12. Chapter 12

_To let thee sit beneath the fall of tears_    
 _As salt as mine,_

Harry dreamed again that night.

He found that he was actually beginning to get quite used to the feeling of dreaming inside someone else’s experience. What with the dreams of his mother’s and Severus’ past, along with the futures that might be awaiting them, it would have been hard  _not_ to. He rather thought that his growing familiarity with the feeling might be a bad sign, but he didn’t exactly have a choice in the matter.  

As he slipped into the dream, the surroundings gradually beginning to come into focus, he felt a decided sinking sensation. As he shivered in recognition, his body instinctively snuggled deeper under the covers, clutching an armful of them almost desperately closer to his chest as if they could protect him from the relentlessly advancing images.

He knew this room. He’d dreamt of it the night before, in almost excruciating detail. He recognised the people present too, and even before he saw them, he knew that they would be identically cloaked and masked, with the exception of the one seated just outside the circle. With something close to horror setting down roots in his heart, he realised that he already knew what he was going to have to see tonight.

He didn’t want to see it again, he thought, willing himself to give himself a hard pinch on his left arm, without care for bruises. The action had no effect on his dream body. Forget again, he decided, he didn’t want to see it  _now._ Orever, if it came down to that. He wasn’t ready to deal with it yet. He needed a little time, some space.

Wasn’t his life complicated enough already? Couldn’t the bond give him just a little while to start to cope with all the other things he had on his plate before he had to face all of this again 

Apparently it couldn’t. Despite his most desperate efforts, he failed to wake himself up. Eventually he simply had to give in and settle into the dream as best he could, accepting that it was going to show him what it wanted whether he liked it or not.

Unlike last night, it turned out that on this occasion he wasn’t merely an outside observer, standing in a corner and simply watching the events as they played out before him, like some kind of horrific movie. This time he was riding inside Severus’ head, seeing through his eyes, privy to his thoughts and feelings. He felt guilty, as if he was invading the man’s privacy even though this had not been his choice. He knew Severus would hate it if he ever found out that this had happened.

Without having to think about it, Harry was aware of Severus’s apprehension and worry, his speculations about what he would have to do this time. He felt, too, the other’s immense gratitude that the cessation of his friendship with Harry had not destroyed their shields again, that his bond-mate would not ever come to know what he did here. Harry sighed mentally. Just what he needed – something to make talking about this even more difficult.

As if cued by Harry’s reluctant capitulation to the demands of the dream, the events began to play out in earnest. It began with the arrival of Lucius Malfoy, the ill-fated Muggle captive. And, of course, the man Severus identified to himself and consequently to Harry as Thane.

Thane, the man who had tortured Severus later that night. Harry prayed he wouldn’t have to see – feel? – that too, but had the sickening suspicion that he would. It wasn’t as if it was ever made easy on him, after all.

He felt the sense of foreboding grow exponentially as Severus blocked out Voldemort’s speech by contemplating the uses the woman might be put to, growing discouraged by the horrors that he came up with. Harry noticed that Ruin had no place on that list, terrible as it was.  

Severus had not thought that even Voldemort would want to use that particular potion. Unlike the Unforgivable Curses, it had no real use apart from the sheer terror produced. Until then, Severus had thought that Voldemort was a practical man, if only because it was the best way to achieve his aims. Simply engineering terror rarely led to power.

Harry was completely submerged in the dream now, but still, thankfully, aware of its being one. He knew that it would all end terribly, but found that he couldn’t remember the outcome when he tried.

When Voldemort’s instruction was finally given, Harry felt, as if it was his own, the intense loathing Severus felt for the mere idea. He saw the desperate ideas and half-made plans that the man formulated and discarded in rapid succession during his too-short walk to the bench that had been set up in anticipation of the potion’s needs.

Harry had thought that what he remembered as the relatively lengthy preparation process would provide him with some time to ready himself for what was to follow. However, it didn’t turn out that way. Nothing tonight was turning out as he hoped.

Instead, the preparation seemed almost to be skimmed over. This dream had some purpose, and whatever awareness was guiding it wasn’t going to run the risk of having him wake up before it had been completed. It knew what it wanted, and was going to have it. Harry felt he should have been frightened by that realisation of the sentience of the bond, but he was too busy worrying about what might come next in the dream to bother with that.

Harry’s sleeping body shuddered in an expression of Severus’ revulsion towards the actions he knew he would have to take, his disgust at what he would have to do to the Muggle woman if he was to allow himself any chance at all of surviving the next few hours. He experienced the man’s terror as he contemplated just what he would have to do to save his conscience, and the pain he felt as he lied to her by implication.

It made an odd contrast to the way he had almost derided Harry for not wanting to lie, had seemed to do it quite easily in fact, earlier that day. It was strange that someone Harry now realised was inherently honest could lie so well – could indeed put his life on the line, trusting to his ability to lie about his whole life to protect him. 

Harry watched the clinical, analytical part of his bond-mate’s mind, constantly contemplating the next action that had to be made. That part saw it all as a problem to be solved, just like the potion. Harry experienced all of it as if the feelings were his own, and was torn between horror, reluctant admiration and sheer disgust.

Together, they felt the strange thrill of pride and power that surged through them as they held the Cruciatus on the woman, mingled with what Harry felt was a truly bizarre tenderness towards her,  _their_  prey. They experienced the disgust, the physical nausea that accompanied it, but whether it was because of the action or because of their reaction, they couldn’t tell.

They both recoiled mentally as they lifted the knife to kill… no,  _murder_ … her. It had to be done, yet…

Harry shied away from the action. Not even the dream could make him face that reality just now.

He was repulsed by the kiss, the stealing of the dying woman’s last breath – the detached part of Severus’ mind taking over completely - as if it were simply another ingredient for the potion, to be harvested in the prescribed manner, as others had been harvested from her in their turn. He didn’t even try to resist the emotion. It was, in his opinion, completely deserved. Nothing could make him accept that.

Yet the feeling wasn’t nearly as strong as his shock when he realised that the reason  _Severus_  had been so dismayed by it was because the action reminded him of his last kiss – with Harry. He couldn’t help his repulsion at the swell of achievement Severus felt just before he ruined the potion. No matter the skill required to do it, no matter the fact that he could have done it perfectly, had he wished to, it was not something to be proud of.

How could you be proud that you had the ability to make something so destructive, that you had  _killed_  someone to accomplish it? That was just  _wrong_ , wasn’t it?

After all of that, as if it wasn't enough already, came the ‘mistake’, the explosion, the unwilling return to groggy half-consciousness. Then the emergence of Thane as a major player in the dream, left to do what he would with the man who had failed his master.

Harry experienced again the progression of curses, the cuts and beatings and burnings. He whimpered and twisted in his sleep, struggling against the blankets tangled around him. He felt the frantic desire to escape through any method open to him, whether to unconsciousness or safety, and the despairing knowledge that there was no way that he could.  

There was nowhere he could go that he could not be brought back from. And if he did escape? He knew too that when he was returned, he would be punished yet again for daring to attempt to flee.

Harry experienced Severus’ sheer panic as Thane returned him to consciousness and produced the other equipment. It was the kind of emotion he had personally only felt once before, when he had faced Voldemort after Cedric’s death. He thought he screamed when he felt the agony of the rod beginning to brand him. Some part of him that still remembered that this was a dream was distantly grateful for the silencing charm he now erected every night as a matter of course before he slept.

He reached desperately, with Severus, for the only person who had the slightest chance of helping him.

Escape. Darkness.

He drifted, remembering, wondering, noticing things he had not realised in the immediacy of the dream.

Even from the beginning and seeming like a thread running right through the dream, there had been the continual check of the shield whenever Severus had the merest instant of clarity to spare. Harry felt, as if it was his own, the man’s almost stabbing relief that he at least could be spared this, that ‘the boy’ would not see what he did that night. That he would not see what he had done, and hate him, as was most natural response to someone who could commit such dreadful deeds. The smallest bit of distance he was granted from the horrors he accomplished and those which were committed upon him, always focused… on Harry, and hope.

Harry knew that when he woke, his pillow would be wet. He didn’t know if the tears were the result of physical pain or emotional, disappointment or sympathy. Most likely, it was a little of all of them. The result of the grief he felt for them both, and for their impossible situation, a situation that was none of their fault or their making. 

After Severus’ escape from Thane, his dreams were less traumatic. He slipped into them with more than a hint of relief lacing his wandering mind and let them drift him where they would, as long as it was away from the events of the night before. They carried him away from any memory of Severus, the bond, or his mother.

He went with them, knowing that he would have to think about everything. Tomorrow.

* * *

In the morning, Harry decided to skip breakfast. He had finally accepted that he had to think about what he’d ‘seen’, or he’d have to experience it over and over again. One thing was certain about this bond; whatever it wanted, it wasn’t afraid to bludgeon them into making it happen, without heed for the consequences it would have on them. 

When he went down to the common room and told everyone that he wasn’t going down Hermione, of course, tried to persuade him to come to breakfast with them. She offered a variety of completely sensible reasons that he was hard put to deny, especially as he was trying not to sound suspicious and end up making her stay with him.

Eventually he managed to persuade her that he truly wasn’t hungry and he just wanted, needed even, some time alone to think. She looked searchingly at him before she nodded, and led Ron off to the Great Hall, promising to bring something back just in case he felt hungry later on. At least that was one good thing about needing to think about this, Harry realised – he would be able to avoid her questions for just a little longer.

He curled up in one of the large, cosy armchairs in front of the massive fireplace with his legs tucked under him, careless of the fact that he was creasing his robes. Getting as comfortable as he could make himself, he ultimately forced himself to face the incidents that had occurred two nights ago and the realisations that had been thrust upon him. He confronted all the things he hadn’t wanted to realise, the things that had been done to and by his bond-mate that night, and the memories of the events he had experienced before that during his time as a Death Eater.

Severus had killed someone. Severus had killed people before, had made potions for Voldemort, potions that had atrocious effects and carried horrible consequences. He had seen some of those in Severus’ memories as he listed potions that he might need to make.

Severus had been tortured mercilessly, and it hadn’t been the first time, not by a long stretch. Severus saw him as someone to be protected, with little thought for costs. Severus cared what he thought – cared enough, at least, to be grateful that Harry wouldn’t know that night’s events.

Severus didn’t want Harry to hate him.

Severus was a murderer. He was a Death Eater.

For the first time, Harry realised what being a Death Eater really meant when applied to that particular man, and he had no idea how to deal with it. What he did know was that he needed to speak to Severus, and yet he had no idea of how to approach the man on this topic.


	13. Chapter 13

_… and hear the sighing years  
Re-sighing on my lips renunciative,_

Severus didn’t appear in the Great Hall for meals at any point during that day. Although Harry didn’t have a Potions lesson that day, he managed to gather from eavesdropping on other pupils’ conversations at dinner that Severus also hadn’t taken any of his lessons. Instead, the Headmaster had been covering the classes for him.

Harry assumed, therefore, that the professor had thus far been unable to free himself from Madam Pomfrey’s protective clutches. So, rather than going down to the dungeons after dinner – after excusing himself to his friends once more - he made for the hospital wing.

The moment he entered, he realised that he had been correct about Severus’ situation. He heard the two of them talking, quietly but intensely, before he caught sight of them. As he approached Madam Pomfrey’s office, he saw Severus, apparently in the middle of vehemently defending his right to look after himself. The man was wearing only his shirtsleeves and trousers, appearing to Harry to be almost undressed without his robes. Madam Pomfrey, however, was insistent that Severus needed to remain under her care for at least another day, if not three. Severus, naturally, was indignant at the mere suggestion.

"Poppy, I have to return to my rooms," he said in a firm tone that would have left no room for argument in a conversation with most other people. "I have things to do, to prepare, that cannot wait. I must talk to Harry as well. I am going to leave, and you have no right whatsoever to stop me." He gave her a glare that had been known to reduce first years to the brink of tears.

Madam Pomfrey proved that she was made of sterner stuff than Severus’ normal victims usually were. "I think you’ll find that I do. If not for the sake of your health, then because Albus asked me to make sure that you were well. You can carry out all of your plans tomorrow," she said, voice equally implacable. "I’m certain that a day’s delay will do no harm, Severus. You always insist on making things seem more urgent than they really are."

"It can’t wait." He sighed, clearly realising that he wasn’t going to win this argument outright no matter what he said. "Will you let me go for a while if I give you my word to come back and sleep here?"

"I suppose it’s the most I’ll get out of you." Her satisfaction at this concession was evident, and equally plainly, she hadn’t expected even that much from him, certainly not without more of a fight. Harry could almost see the wheels turning in her head, wondering if she had perhaps underestimated Severus’ tiredness, if he was willing to give in that much.  

"I don’t approve, but I will let you go," she said eventually, frowning slightly as her initial gratification at the victory faded. "If you don’t come back, though," she warned, looking Severus straight in the eyes, "I will ask Albus to have a word with you."

"Very well," the man sighed resignedly. He turned, making it a sweeping motion even without his customary robes to aid him, and noticed Harry for the first time. "Ah, I see you found me."

"Yes," Harry replied, offering a tentative smile, which was returned – barely, but the twitch of lips was there. He tried not to make it obvious that he was very definitely noticing Severus as the man walked over to his bed, where the rest of his clothes were lying. He picked up his coat and robes, shrugging them on with a fluid motion.

"Well, shall we go?" he asked, returning to where Harry stood silently watching him, and looked down at him with a slight frown. Harry looked up at his face, startled out of his reverie, and nodded.

They made their way down to the dungeons in near-complete silence. Harry noted that while Severus appeared at first glance to be moving with all of his usual grace, a closer examination revealed that he was walking more slowly than usual, particularly when they had to climb any stairs. He refrained from commenting on this however, knowing that Severus would deny any change if it was mentioned. And then he would probably try to push himself too much in an attempt to prove that he was completely well when, to anyone who cared to look, he obviously wasn’t. So he simply matched the pace the man set, and sighed, very quietly, to himself.

When they got to the door to Severus’ rooms, the man muttered the password – after a quick look at Harry that Harry suspected he hadn’t been supposed to see. Almost before it was properly open, the man walked in and made straight for his chair as if it was the only safe refuge left in the world.

Severus winced slightly as he sat down, and shifted uncomfortably. Once he was more comfortably settled, presumably in a position that didn’t irritate any of the injuries that Harry now knew far too much about, he turned to Harry, looking at him expectantly.

Harry followed him in. The house-elves had already been in here, if the fire blazing in the hearth was any indication.  He paused for a moment just inside the doorway, looking around for any changes since the last time he’d been in there. It felt much longer ago than it had actually been. As his eyes swept the room, he didn’t note anything strikingly different. It smelled the same too – he suspected that different wood was used in Severus’ fire than in the rest of the castle, though he’d never asked – and the same warmth caressed his skin. Severus had told him before that he felt the cold a great deal, and the dungeon required a great deal of effort to keep warm. The lack of change was perhaps to be expected, but something did feel subtly changed, though Harry couldn’t immediately tell what it was.

When his eyes fell on the desk, he realised the origin of the feeling. The paperweight he’d given Severus at the beginning of the last term, which had been given a fairly prominent place on his desk since that day, was no longer there. He touched the bracelet he wore without making a conscious decision to do so. Severus’ eyes flicked to the same place. He had noticed the gesture, subtle as it was, and knew what must be there although of course he could not see it. As if reflected from Harry’s wrist, his eyes went to the place on his desk where the snake used to reside.

Neither of them commented on it, however, not feeling comfortable enough yet to bring up the events of  _that_ evening, and face all of the issues that it would bring up. Instead, Harry moved to the chair he had always taken during the few months he had been a regular visitor to these rooms, settling into it as if he had been there sitting there every day since that first time, after one of their tutoring sessions.

Then they stared at each other for a while in silence. Eventually Severus lowered his eyes from his intent contemplation of Harry’s face, and said softly, with a hint of a self-deprecating smile, "This is ridiculous."

"It is rather, isn’t it?" Harry offered another tentative smile of his own.

"Mmmm." Severus was looking at his hands now, sitting back in the shadows, and Harry couldn’t tell what expression he wore. The bond was shut down as tight as it ever was on the man’s side, and it was the same on his own.

"It’s not as if I have the time to waste either. I’m convinced that Poppy will be down here with an army if I don’t go back to her at a reasonable hour," Severus continued.

Harry smiled again, more sincerely. "I never thought you’d be the type to be pushed around by Madam Pomfrey." 

"I fear there is no one in this world who can avoid it, once they have got into her clutches." The man looked up briefly, smiling slightly at him once more, even if it was with considerable irony.

"Oh," said Harry. He contemplated all of the things he could say.

_I still think I love you, you know._

_I think we need to talk about the woman you killed._

_I don’t know if I can do this._

_Why did you get rid of it? What did you do with it?_

_What does it actually mean to you, that you’re a Death Eater?  
(Because I don’t like what I saw, a bit, and I’d really like you to tell me that it’s not like that at all.)_

_I don’t think I can do this._

_What do you want to say to me?_

_What are you thinking now, that you can’t look at me?_

_What do you actually think, or feel, about me?_

There were a thousand or more other possibilities, and not one of them would be of any use.

The other man seemed content to sit there and stare at his hands folded neatly in his lap, letting Harry come up with something to say next. He was leaning slightly forward now, the firelight flickering against the left side of his face like a caress, highlighting and shadowing strategically. It concealed lines, flushed usually sallow skin,  softened angles. Harry’s breath caught, and he found it suddenly hard to think. He shook himself mentally, reminding himself once more of appropriate times.

In the end, he chose none of the options his mind had thrown at him, knowing that they would simply complicate the situation again. If there was one thing they didn’t need, it was that, now when their friendship was so newly mended, so very fragile and uncertain. 

"Anyway, I thought we were going to arrange times for the lessons?" he asked. It was an innocuous enough question – inane, perhaps, but safe - and it had the advantage of having something to do with the alleged reason they were down here in the first place.

Harry caught the flicker of eyelashes, and thought Severus had blinked. "Yes. Originally I thought perhaps the same timetable as before." The man flicked a look at him, perhaps trying to gauge his reaction. "However, I think that perhaps we should not spend so much time together."

Harry knew what he was thinking without even having to reach for the bond. He struggled not to show his disappointment, or the edge of irritation he felt, on his face.

 _I don’t want to expose myself to your childish infatuation any more than I need to._  He could almost hear it, in the voice Severus used when a student had suggested something particularly stupid.

Perhaps he was being unjust to him, though. After all, the man had made all the advances this time.

"Well, OK. Is there any time you’d prefer then?" Harry replied, with as much grace as he could muster.

"Tuesday and Thursday afternoons would be best for me. However I can also offer you the option of Wednesday afternoons and Saturday mornings," he added quickly, looking up again. He was trying, in his own way, Harry realised. Severus had mentioned before that those were the times that he preferred to use to work on his personal research projects.

"Can I take Tuesday and Saturday, then? Team Quidditch practice is on Thursday afternoon," Harry reminded, giving him as warm a smile as he could muster in thanks.

"Ah, I’d forgotten that. Certainly you may." Harry was relieved to note that he didn’t seem annoyed to have lost that time.  

There was a faintly uncomfortable pause. The faint frown on Severus’ face suggested that was considering whether to say something, but wasn’t sure if it was a wise choice. After a couple of moments he came out with, "God forbid I deprive the Gryffindors of the one player who allows them half a chance at the Quidditch Cup."

A retort that seemed strangely familiar, like a leftover from the last few times they’d sat like this, sprung to Harry’s lips. He let it free after a moment’s hesitation, hoping that it would move them away from the tentative feeling of the evening so far. He could feel the shields on the bond being involuntarily loosened – on both sides - as they relaxed.

"You might want to be careful – that was almost a compliment," he said, with as bright a grin as he could manage.

Severus smirked back at him, and Harry’s heart gave an unexpected flutter, born from a strange mixture of hope, gratitude and desire.

"Rather you should consider it rather a testament to the ineptitude of your team-mates," Severus said, a real smile threatening.

Harry sneered slightly at him, and for a few moments it was almost as if he had never kissed the man opposite him, as if their friendship had been a constant thing. He could almost forget that he had been made to see what it meant to be a Death Eater.

Then Severus shifted slightly, the shadow of a pained grimace flickering across his face, and Harry was sharply reminded of why exactly he had given that reaction. His heart sank slightly. The illusion of ease was shattered, and he stood, feeling suddenly uncomfortable again. "I should be getting back," he said awkwardly, hoping that Severus wouldn’t object.

"As should I," the man replied, seeming satisfied to let the meeting end, perhaps because of Harry’s obvious discomfort or for his own reasons. Maybe Madam Pomfrey really was that scary.

Perhaps he ought to offer something, thought Harry. It couldn’t hurt anything, and he felt the sudden desire to have the feeling of a few minutes ago back. "I suppose we could walk up to the first floor together?" 

"Yes."

They walked up the stairs out of the dungeon in a slightly more comfortable silence than the one they had walked down in. On the first floor they parted ways, as they had to take different staircases, Harry towards Gryffindor Tower, Severus to the hospital wing.

"Good night, Severus. Sleep well," Harry said quietly, meaning it with every fibre of his being.

"Good night, Harry. Sweet dreams." That wish, he could tell, was just as sincere as his own had been.

// _Perhaps, if I’m lucky_ ,// he said, seized by some imp of mischief or memory. He smiled as he walked away, and could feel that Severus was doing the same, if only internally.


	14. Chapter 14

_Through those infrequent smiles which fail to live  
For all thy adjurations?_

Harry was outside Severus’ rooms punctually at 7:30 on Tuesday evening. After rather more debate than the issue really deserved, he’d decided to bring along all of the notes he’d made in his classes in the past week, but none of his textbooks. After all, they hadn’t decided which subject they were going to focus on tonight, and he didn’t feel like dragging them all down just so he could use one or two. Knowing Severus, he probably had all of them handy anyway, and Harry knew he could always go back up and get the ones he needed if he didn’t. 

He realised that he was filling the spaces where he should have been thinking about the things he didn’t want to face with inconsequentialities. He found that he didn’t really care. The longer he could avoid thinking about those things, the better, in his view.

However, as he tapped on the door and waited for the reply, he couldn’t help but contrast this to how things had been not so long before. Mere months ago, he would have walked straight in and taken his seat without any worries about his reception. Or before that, he would have sent a mental knock before he even started down, would have known that he was welcome well before he reached the door, rather than standing here anxiously like now.

And before that, he wouldn’t have been seen dead visiting the dungeons if he had any choice at all in the matter.

Well, things changed. How they did. He felt an ironic smile touch his mouth just as Severus opened the door for him.

The man gave him an unreadable look, perhaps in response to the lingering smile. Harry attempted to fix a more appropriately neutral expression onto his face.

"Harry. Come in," Severus said after a moment longer, stepping aside so that Harry could enter.

As Harry walked in, he automatically glanced over the room. Although Severus’ face was unreadable as usual, he sensed some tension from the man and couldn’t help but wonder at its cause. When his gaze finally fell on Severus’ desk, he noticed that there was now a very familiar paperweight at one corner, holding down the neat stack of marked work. He smiled slightly, wondering exactly what its presence meant. After a little thought, he decided to take it as a hopeful sign.

The room was as warm as always, the generous fire in the hearth providing a flickering illumination that augmented the magical lights Severus preferred to use when he needed to work. He’d explained before that with the amount of reading he did, magic was the only thing that could provide the bright, steady light he needed. Harry had so far managed to resist the temptation to try to explain electricity to him. 

He followed Severus over to the extra desk that had clearly been set up for him, and sat down in the chair behind it at the professor’s instruction. Severus went to stand in front of the fireplace, with his back to it. Harry had expected that, knowing he craved the heat despite the thickness of his robes, at least twice as heavy as Harry’s own.

Harry himself felt rather warm, and was quite glad that Severus had chosen to place the desk about as far from the fire as it could be in this room. He noted, wriggling slightly, that the seat he now occupied was padded enough to be comfortable, but just barely.

"I don’t remember this being here. You know, before," he commented, stroking a hand over the smooth, dark, heavily grained wood. Someone had probably spent hours on it, varnishing and polishing it to a soft sheen. It was an expensive piece of furniture, if not overly elaborate, and the chair he now sat in had obviously been made to match.

"It wasn’t." The answer was given flatly, as a mere statement of fact, but Harry still found himself rather touched by the gesture. This desk was the most overt move Severus had ever made to acknowledging that Harry was – or would be - a regular enough visitor to be made allowances for, and to do it with such a beautiful thing…

"Oh," he replied, feeling like he ought to respond somehow – in some more eloquent way - but unable to come up with something more articulate.

"It usually resides in my spare room," Severus added, in Harry’s opinion rather unnecessarily. He wasn’t sure if it was a good sign or not that the professor seemed nervous enough to add that. It was about as close to babbling as he ever came.

Harry hadn’t even known that there  _was_  a spare room, had seen only this room, the workroom and the kitchen. He wondered why Severus would ever  _need_  a spare room.

"Oh." Once again, he made an almost unconscious resolution to spend some time with a dictionary in the near future. He knew that he probably wouldn’t remember to make the time, and the next time he was here he would end up making the same resolution, but it was at least a worthwhile goal. Of course, it had nothing to do with wanting to impress Severus at all. 

"I’m glad to see that your conversational skills are as scintillating as ever," replied Severus in that familiar, sardonic tone. Clearly, he agreed that dictionary time would be a good idea.

Harry fought the urge to stick out his tongue, but eventually had to give in to the irresistible impulse. Severus gave him a thoroughly bemused look in response.

"Hey, you were the one who wanted to be friends again," said Harry, with a smile that was only slightly forced. He thought that was quite a victory, considering the circumstances. It was much easier than he had expected, though, made so by the presence of the paperweight and ‘his’ desk. He couldn’t help but consider it his, now, although Severus would certainly never tell him that it was anything of the sort.

"Oh. Yes." Severus sounded slightly flustered by Harry’s reminder, but he soon gained enough control of himself once more to revert to his usual habits. "Do you count your friends by your ability to stick out your tongue at them?" he asked. There was genuine curiosity behind the expected sarcasm, however, which Harry hadn’t really anticipated.

"In your case, yes," he grinned widely at Severus, the action feeling far more natural than the last, before setting about getting out his notes and writing materials.

This was better. Much, much better. So what if they weren’t talking about major issues and all the rest of it yet? Doing that would only make both of them uneasy, maybe even lead to another argument and yet another breach, which they most certainly did not need now. This was safer.

It was also far, far more comfortable, for the both of them. Severus certainly didn’t seem eager to bring up anything weightier, which was exactly as Harry had assumed it would be.

"Harry?" Just a hint of concern made it into the man’s voice, though Harry was sure that no one else, with the possible exception of Professor Dumbledore, would have picked up on it. He had the feeling that Severus had said his name more than once already in the preceding few minutes.

"Hmm? Sorry, I was thinking," he apologised, glancing up from his blank examination of the desk. He was just in time to catch the edge of a worried expression slinking away from the professor’s features. 

"Ah. I merely asked if there were any areas you felt unsure about or particularly wished to cover," he explained. He walked across the room to stand in front of the desk opposite Harry, who hurriedly began to extract the rest of his belongings, setting them on the desk.

"Uhm, well actually – all the Potions we’ve done since we stopped the tutoring before?" He looked up at Severus’ face again to gauge his reaction, hoping he hadn’t offended him too much by the request. He’d been concentrating so hard on getting things  _right_  in class in order to avoid the teacher’s attention that he’d not had a chance to learn the theory.

Severus’ lips quirked. That was a good sign - as long as he wasn’t in front a roomful of ‘ignorant’ pupils. "I suppose I should have expected that from you. Very well, then."

That set the tone for their encounters for some weeks. They managed to develop a quiet sort of friendship again, although nothing like the closeness they had begun to acquire before that night. For the majority of the time, they were reasonably polite and distant to each other.

Yet, the new amity was interspersed with times when they would fall into the old pattern of comfortable insult and retort. Harry thought both of them enjoyed that – he knew he certainly did. However, there were also moments of odd anxiety, unspoken tensions that neither of them would acknowledge surfacing for an instant before being shrugged off as quickly as possible. And there were moments when Harry would look up, and feel his breath catch at the realisation of just what he felt for the man.

Both of them knew the situation couldn’t last, but they each were willing to let it go until the other was ready to open the subject of bigger things.

And so they each waited for the other to make the first move, and made no progress with the issues that they needed to face.

Voldemort had not called Severus since that night. However, neither had he been subjected to anything that would indicate he had been branded a traitor to the ‘cause’. The only conclusion he could therefore come to was that Thane had neglected to inform the Dark Lord of the exact circumstances of the end of his ‘punishment’, perhaps for fear of the reaction if he realised that he had allowed Severus to escape. In that case, the long silence almost certainly simply meant that Voldemort had no need of potions.  

However, that in turn presumably meant that he was formulating a plan, and Severus could not attempt to investigate without causing further suspicion. Instead, he had to rely on the attempts of his fellow members of the Order, and it grated on his nerves.

The realisation that Voldemort was planning something wasn’t particularly surprising. After all, it was nearing the end of the summer term, the traditional time for Voldemort’s annual attempt to kill Harry. Severus told Dumbledore of his suspicions, and resolved to be even more cautious and paranoid than usual himself. And then he had to decide what, if anything, to say to Harry on the subject.

One evening at the end of May, as Harry was finishing off his task for the day, his forehead slightly creased in a frown of concentration, Severus decided he should not – could not - put it off any longer. The end of the year was only a month away now, and the anticipation of an attack on Harry had been growing for months.

"Harry?" he questioned, looking over at the boy from his own desk, where he was attempting to do some marking. Unfortunately, Harry’s presence was quite distracting. He had a terrible habit of  _breathing_ that Severus didn’t care to try to break him of.

"Hmm?" the boy replied without looking up, his quill still scratching busily over his parchment.

"After you’re done, would you care to stay and have some tea?" If there was a little hesitation in his tone, it would have taken someone extremely familiar with him to detect it. Unfortunately, Harry was, and did.

He finally looked up, giving Severus an enquiring look. They had not as yet resumed their habit of regularly spending time together after the lessons, although he did occasionally wander down to chat for a while. He was always greeted courteously, even welcomingly, as time passed.  

He nodded after a moment of thought. "Umm, sure. I don’t have any plans or anything."

"Good." Severus went into the kitchen to prepare some tea as Harry began to pack up his belongings. He returned just as the boy was finishing. As they settled into the armchairs, he handed a mug over, then spoke. "Actually, I have something I need to say to you."

"Thought so," commented Harry under his breath. Severus almost always had an ulterior motive.

"What?"

"Oh, nothing," Harry replied, the faintest hint of a smile crossing his face. "Um, you were saying?" He didn’t really feel like explaining himself, because he could just see it leading to a more complicated conversation, the kind they’d both been studiously avoiding.

"Yes. I merely wished to advise you to be careful until the end of term. Voldemort is quite obviously planning something. The Headmaster agrees with me," urged Severus. He leaned forward in his chair in the attempt to convince Harry of the danger.

"Ah, well, you know I could have figured that out for myself. He’s been trying to kill me on a regular basis for the last six years, after all. But thanks for reminding me anyway." He smiled at the man, surprised by how much concern he was showing.

"Don’t hesitate to use the bond if you need to. I have an interest in seeing you remain alive, after all," he said, clearly hoping it would be reassuring. Harry decided that it was.

"I won’t. And it’s good to know you don’t want me dead." He’d intended it to be completely light and teasing, but there was an undertone of involuntary honesty, and perhaps just a touch of relief, in his voice. 

"I never wanted you dead." Severus sounded slightly shocked by Harry’s statement, and a little defensive.

"I know." He had known that, known it for a long while. He’d just wanted to hear it. He’d needed to hear it ever since his first year, and the revelations about Quirrell, he realised.

Their conversation, however, soon turned to trivialities. Neither of them was yet willing to take this close to perfect opportunity to bring up anything more significant, and Harry didn’t stay long.


	15. Chapter 15

_… O my fears,_

Two weeks after their conversation, Harry had to take the usual end of year exams. For once, he found himself without Voldemort-related problems to worry about while he was taking them. It felt weird, but it also meant that he was able to concentrate on them fully rather than having his attention directed at more life-threatening concerns. Of course, it also helped that he was better prepared for them than he had ever been, thanks to Severus’ tutoring and thorough training.  _That_  meant he was even able to relax slightly, rather than being constantly tense with worry that something he’d not had the time to revise would come up and ruin everything.

Naturally, relaxation not generally being a word in Hermione’s vocabulary, she insisted that the three of them follow the revision schedule she had drawn up again this year. Harry was rather grateful that he could use lessons with Severus as an excuse to escape at least some of the sessions. On the other hand, judging from Hermione’s occasionally mussed hair and flushed face when he returned early, he suspected that his two friends didn’t always stick to the schedule exactly when he wasn’t there with them.

The exams went well, in his opinion. He felt more confident about them afterwards than he had in years, even in the subjects like Arithmancy which he had not exactly found easy to pick up this year. The weekend following the end of exams was scheduled as a Hogsmeade weekend, as was customary. On the Friday night, after his last exam – the Transfigurations practical test - Harry went down to visit Severus with the excuse of checking if there was anything the professor needed from the village while he was there.

After inquiring about how the exams had gone, Severus warned him once again of the dangers of leaving school grounds, even if it was only to go to Hogsmeade. He also reminded Harry quite forcefully of the necessity of caution.

Then, after a few moments of consideration, he added, "However, if you are insistent on endangering your own skin, you may as well make it worthwhile and bring me back some liquorice laces. Ordinary ones, mind. None of that tacky Charmed rubbish that they sell everywhere."

Harry grinned at him. "Okay then. I s’pose I really should have known that you’d like black sweets," he teased.

Severus glared at him, but not as if he particularly meant it.

So it was that on Saturday afternoon Harry found himself in Honeydukes, searching in vain for ‘ordinary’ liquorice laces. He managed to find ones that would tie themselves into knots and ones that would tie people up in knots. He came across ones that wriggled in your mouth almost as if they were disguised snakes, and others that changed taste with each bite, and more other varieties than he could really keep track of.  

As he searched, he began to understand why Severus had specified uncharmed ones. That didn’t change the fact that he was unable to find any. He spent so long looking that his friends eventually got tired of waiting for him to give up, and told him they’d meet him later on, as they had other plans. Ones which didn’t include spending all day in the sweetshop.

It didn’t help that he was quite reluctant to explain exactly  _why_  he was so intent on getting his hands on these particular sweets. Not that he thought they’d mind him wanting to get something for Severus, at least once they’d got over the initial shock, but it might give them the wrong – or perhaps the right – impression.

In the end, forced to concede at least temporary defeat, he decided to ask the shopkeeper for some help. The stocky, bearded man gave him a decidedly odd look, and pointed out to Harry the extensive selection he’d already looked through. He didn’t seem able to understand why anyone would prefer staid, Muggle-style liquorice laces to his clearly far superior magic ones. Harry heaved a long-suffering sigh, deciding to ask Ron if he knew of any other sweetshops in the village.

He walked out of the cool, dark shop into the afternoon sunshine, and felt his momentary disappointed mood lift. It was one of those gloriously sunny, cloudless mid-June days that effectively wiped away the memory of the long, cold winter and soggy spring, and it was wonderful not to have to think about exams on such a beautiful day. It was warm enough for him to be comfortable in a t-shirt, but not too hot, and there was a gentle breeze that kept the air fresh. It smelled of freshly cut grass, the source easily detected – the man mowing his lawn with a spell Harry wished he’d known when he’d lived with the Dursleys. It was really impossible to be grumpy when the day was this perfect. He could always buy something else if he had no luck, he reminded himself. It wasn’t all that serious a problem.

He wandered through the village, poking his head into shops as he went, and finally found Ron and Hermione sipping butterbeer on a bench set up outside the Three Broomsticks. As he settled down with his own tankard, he asked if they’d heard about any other places he could buy sweets. Ron mentioned there was supposed to be another sweetshop near Dervish and Banges, but he’d never been there because they didn’t sell many wizarding sweets. Harry thought this sounded perfect for what he needed. Finishing off his drink, he told them he’d have a look and then meet up with them again.

Although they offered to come with him and keep him company on his expedition, he told them not to bother. After all, it was only Hogsmeade, perfectly safe, and he’d be back soon, he assured them. Hermione looked slightly uneasy at this, reminding him of Severus’ warning.  

Since Harry’s friends now knew about the existence of the bond, he’d been able to tell them about some parts of his conversations with Severus. Actually, they’d probably have thought it odd if he  _didn’t_. It was also much easier to explain the man’s concern – they took the bond as an explanation of almost everything, although he occasionally caught Hermione giving him those speculative looks. He shrugged off the caution again, instructing her teasingly to call in the cavalry if he was gone for more than half an hour. Ron laughed at the command, but Hermione agreed with not a hint of playfulness in her eyes.

It took Harry a while to locate the shop Ron had mentioned. Eventually he found it, halfway down a side-street near the edge of the village. Thankfully, once he’d got there, he soon discovered they did carry ordinary sweets, and specifically the ones he needed. It took very little time to make his purchase, and he watched the old man behind the counter wrap them up for him with a distinct sense of satisfaction at a job well done. He’d have to make Severus pay for the amount of trouble he’d had to go through for these sweets.

He hummed happily, if tunelessly, to himself as he made for the door. At that point, however, his plan went more than a little awry.

As he exited the shop, he felt a presence close by, then a sharp poke at his right side. He recognised the pressure of a wand’s tip nestling just under the last ribs. He was in deep trouble, he could tell it now, even though nothing much had been said or done. A deep, low, male voice hissed in his ear, as an ominously shrouded figure stepped close behind him.

"Stay quiet and come with me."

Harry felt suddenly cold despite the summery day, struggling to keep his composure in the face of this alarming development. A corner of his mind intent on analysing the situation rather thought it recognised the voice that issued the command, although he couldn’t place where he’d heard it before. It wasn’t one that he heard regularly, he decided. He attempted to crane his neck up and back, trying to catch a glimpse of his captor’s features, but his face was well hidden under the hood of his cloak.

"Move!" instructed the man impatiently, prodding him sharply, threateningly, with the wand.

Harry decided to go along with him, resisting the instinct to struggle, to make this as difficult as possible for the man. After all, with him on his right side there was no way he’d be able to get his wand out without him noticing, and his grasp of wandless magic was unreliable at best. They clearly wanted him alive, and if he resisted they’d probably just Stupefy him and take him along anyway. It was best not to provoke them, for now. At least this way he was still conscious.

There was one thing he could do however, he realised suddenly, wondering why he hadn’t thought of it before.

// _Severus._ // He got the man’s attention, then gave him a flood of images that showed his current predicament. He hoped that the edge of panic creeping up at the thought of simply letting himself be taken away by this man didn’t show too much.

// _Bugger,_ // replied Severus, surprised and worried enough to allow himself a curse.// _Harry, I_ ** _told_**   _you to be careful._ // Harry thought the man sounded more annoyed than anything else, but also couldn’t help but notice the concern beneath it.

// _Okay, I’ll be there,_ // Severus said, barely hesitating.His mental ‘voice’ dropped, sounding more reassuring, and yet warning at the same time. // _Don’t do anything stupid and get yourself knocked out,_ // he added, the half-criticism oddly familiar and comforting, the confidence in Harry underlying it encouraging. // _I need to be able to find you._ //

// _I know, I’m sorry, and I won’t,_ // replied Harry, feeling rather annoyed at himself for not paying attention to his surroundings, not to mention horribly guilty about it, and also rather relieved that he hadn’t let Ron and Hermione accompany him. If the obvious suspicion about the reason behind this was correct, the man who’d captured him would probably not have had any qualms about hurting them if they got in the way.

// _Um, if you need it, my Cloak is in my trunk,_ // he offered, hoping that he could redeem slightly himself in Severus’ eyes with the suggestion. It had really been quite stupid of him to let himself get captured like this and have to get Severus to come rescue him like a helpless child, he realised with a mental cringe. Remembering that they were still linked, he didn’t let the rest of that thought come any closer to the surface.

// _Thank you. It might be useful._ // Harry felt a pause before Severus added, // _Don’t blame yourself too much. Concentrate on staying unharmed._ // He hesitated yet again before he said,// _And Harry, I’m here for you._ // His voice was warmer than it had been for a long time.

// _Yes._ // Slightly comforted, although still kicking himself internally, Harry felt Severus break the connection and sink back into his own mind. He tried not to sigh at the loss, if only because it might be suspicious, and went back to observing his surroundings.

Harry walked according to the cloaked figure’s directions. The man, perhaps a head taller than him, stayed close enough behind him and to the right to keep the wand securely pressed to Harry’s side without allowing it to be seen. The action was so natural it seemed he’d done something similar many times before. They probably looked like family, Harry thought, the man’s closeness seeming to be a protective contact rather than endangering him.

He kept the ‘line’ to Severus open, and admitted to himself that this was for more than merely practical reasons. It was… comforting to know that the man was only a thought away. Harry knew he must be in the hands of Death Eaters, and even if Severus was one, had committed their crimes, as he knew so intimately, at least he was now  _Harry’s_ Death Eater.

He refused, however, to let himself think ‘Now he’s talking to the Headmaster’, and ‘Now he’s on his way to the gates’. That would serve no purpose except to worry him if there was some delay. At least concentrating on avoiding those thoughts kept him from being scared out of his wits. He took a deep breath and prayed for calm as they left the boundary of Hogsmeade, heading in the opposite direction from the school.

Eventually he was directed to a clearing in a small wood, perhaps an offshoot of the Forbidden Forest, although not connected to it. His fear surged as he registered the seven other people, all cloaked and hooded, waiting in the shadow of the trees.

// _I’m coming. Albus is with me. Just… try not to do anything foolish. Please,_ // Severus said unexpectedly. It sounded like an order, as Harry had anticipated, but the sincere, barely hidden entreaty behind it surprised him. 

// _You might want to tell_ ** _them_** _that._ // Unfortunately, it bore less sarcasm than he’d intended, and rather more pleading.

// _Stay calm._ // Severus’ statement would have been more effective had Harry not been able to feel the anxiety underlying it. // _Just… stay calm._ //

// _I’m **trying**_ ,// Harry snapped, fear momentarily getting the better of him, and then // _I’m sorry._ //

// _Perfectly all right,_ // soothed Severus. // _Won’t be long now._ // The sense of his presence faded slightly once more.

As Harry and his escort entered the clearing, the other figures quickly moved to form a circle around them. All of them had their wands out, pointing straight at Harry. "Stay there, unless you want your life to become even shorter than it has to be," said his original captor, moving to take his place in the circle, directly in front of him. The wind was stronger now, rustling through the leaves above their heads.

He stood there, at the centre of a knot of silent, mysterious figures once more, and felt terror clawing roughly at him, begging him to give it just  _one_  chink to enter and rip his throat out, just to ease his death-grip on it for a bare moment, just long enough.  

He closed his eyes, and swayed ever so slightly. He was about to – to do something, he didn’t know what, maybe scream or try to run, anything to break the sense of waiting. Just before he moved, the one who’d captured him stepped forward slightly, and pushed back his hood.

All thoughts were fleetingly scorched from his mind in shock and terror as he recognised the face, and stared. Now he knew why the voice had been familiar, and why he had been unable to place it. He had never imagined that he would hear it so near Hogwarts, had not wanted to imagine that he would ever hear it himself. 

_Thane!_


	16. Chapter 16

_That this can scarce be right!_

For a frozen minute, Harry could not think of anything beyond his realisation of his captor’s identity. Thane was speaking, but for the moment, the words were merely a collection of unintelligible sounds to Harry. It was all he could do to comprehend that he was indeed in the hands of a Death Eater, which was bad enough by itself. But he knew precisely, far too intimately, just what this one was capable of, had done, and that made it incomparably worse.

The fear he had been fighting ever since the wand first nudged him outside the shop surged up at this sign of weakness. He shivered, wrapping his arms around himself involuntarily. Thane’s mouth began to form a curse at the sudden movement before he realised the intention, but Harry didn’t notice the increase in his danger. He found himself wishing that he hadn’t decided to wear his summer robes and no jumper, although somehow he didn’t think that warmer clothes would have helped much.

It was several moments before he realised that Severus had been attempting to get his attention for some time. Presumably, he had been worried by the flood of panic threatening to overwhelm Harry’s mind. 

// _Harry. Harry, what_ ** _is_** _it?_ // questioned the man, his urgency and anxiety plain as he attempted to get an answer.

// _I…_ // He could not explain. But he could show. Without knowing how he did it, he allowed Severus access to his eyes, indicating Thane although he knew it wasn’t necessary.

// _Fuck_.// The uncharacteristic curse was another indicator of the terror that he could feel was now shared by Severus, a match to Harry’s own. Showing the man just whom they had to face had perhaps not been such a good idea, but he could not bring himself to care very much at that moment. Other worries clamoured for his attention, and were far more successful

// _Harry, we’re coming. It’ll take us fifteen minutes or so to get there, though. Hold on. And… don’t anger him._ // Harry knew that Severus was trying to reassure him, and it even worked, a little. The knowledge that he was not alone after all, that the two men best equipped to help him were on their way, calmed him a little, staved off the flood for a while longer. However, the effect was not nearly as total as he could have wished.

// _I’ll try,_ // he said, unable to take offence at the caution after having failed to heed the last, and now being forced to regret that decision. Also, he could feel the care that prompted the admonition, and that helped too.

// _Stay with me?_ // he asked before he could stop himself, pride less important for the moment than his need for support.

// _Of course._ // This time after the end of their exchange, the sense of Severus’ presence did not immediately fade. Harry allowed himself to be slightly comforted by the feeling, and tried to pay some attention to Thane’s words rather than concentrating on his predicament. He had to know what was going on.

"… before we take you to our Lord," Thane finished. Harry suddenly wished he’d been paying attention all along. From Severus’ experience, he knew that there was possibly only one thing worse than being helpless in the hands of Death Eaters. That was being in their power without the faintest idea of what they had in mind, and so being unable to prepare yourself for it.  

At least Thane didn’t seem to require an answer, and Harry was thankful for that small mercy. Instead, the Death Eater seemed content to circle Harry, inspecting him in minute detail from a mere foot away. Harry felt almost physically violated by the searching gaze bestowed upon him, and had to fight not to shiver in loathing, or lash out in an instinctive response to such a look. The others in the circle were examining him too, but none in the intimate, almost proprietary way Thane was scrutinising him. Perhaps, after all, he didn’t really want to know what the man had planned. He fixed his eyes on the ground, barely seeing the grass and patches of bare earth surrounding his feet, and hoped that Severus and the Headmaster would find the clearing soon.

He endured a good five minutes of skin-crawling inspection before the Death Eater moved again. He stepped closer to Harry and brushed his fringe out of his face with a casual hand before cupping the hand beneath his chin and lifting his face. Harry kept his eyes fixed over Thane’s left shoulder so he didn’t have to look into his eyes as the man wanted. He just managed, with an immense effort of will, to hold back his instinctive movement in response to the touch to a shiver and a twitch of his right hand.

He didn’t know whether he’d been about to angrily shake the man’s intruding hand off him, or to reach for the wand the Death Eaters had so far neglected to take from him and cast a hex, hopefully fatal. He reminded himself that either way, it would most probably have gotten him into serious – make that  _more_  serious – trouble, and served no real purpose.  _Well, apart from ridding the world of **him**_ , he thought, if he’d chosen the latter _._

He worried himself more than a little when he noticed that he was able to think of killing Thane in so calm a manner, even though he was in all other respects far from composed.

"So this is the famous scar," said the man, lifting his other hand to trace it in a parody of intimacy. Harry repressed another shiver.

"So much trouble for such a… little… thing," Thane mused, his tone wondering and curious. His eyes rested on Harry’s face searchingly.

"You are an innocent, are you not?" he said after a moment of contemplating Harry’s expression, his reaction to the touch.

Harry said nothing, hoping his revulsion didn’t show too plainly and get him killed, or worse.

"You don’t wish to answer me? In that case you may wish to pay some attention to learning better control of your face. Not that you will have much time for such lessons in the future." He paused again, as if contemplating Harry’s fate, seeming to find it a pleasant thought.

"It is a true pity I cannot do something about you," he said regretfully, thoughtfully, "but Lord Voldemort wished you to remain unharmed until he had seen you and dealt with you to his satisfaction." He turned away abruptly to face one of the other Death Eaters. Much to Harry’s relief, the movement necessitated the removal of his hand from Harry’s face. Harry relaxed a fraction as he moved away.

"How long until the Portkey activates?" the man snapped out, his impatience suddenly clear.

The Death Eater addressed consulted his watch. A corner of Harry’s mind not occupied with plans, worries and ‘what-if’s found the idea of a Death Eater with a wristwatch rather strange. It was a very small part, and not terribly loud, and it subsided after a moment.

"Nine minutes, sir."

// _Severus,_   _you might want to hurry,_ // Harry said, his mental voice tense. He fervently hoped that it had been more than six minutes since Severus’ estimate of when they would arrive. He most certainly did not want to meet Voldemort again just yet.

 _Never_ , he thought to himself. Never would be just fine.

// _Just five minutes more,_ // Severus replied quickly, having overheard the exchange through the open link, and having expected the suggestion. // _We’re almost there. Albus is just attempting to find a way through their wards that won’t alert them to our presence,_ // he explained, understanding Harry’s need to know what was happening.

Of course they had put wards round the clearing, Harry thought. He should have expected it, and known that Dumbledore would be able to subvert them. Despite being told about the delay, he found himself reassured by the knowledge that Severus and the Headmaster were now so close. But there were still so many things to worry about. 

Harry brought his mind back to his immediate situation just as Thane’s attention returned to him. "I do not blame you for appearing frightened, boy," the man said, after a close look at Harry. He smiled unpleasantly, seemingly satisfied by what he saw in the boy’s face.

"Our lord will make you wish most fervently that you had died with your parents. And then… then he will hand you over to me." Thane’s expression became even more repellent. Harry shivered again, hugged himself a little tighter, and bit his tongue hard enough to get the faintest taste of blood.

"What, you have nothing to say, Harry?" Thane raised an eyebrow, his tone melodramatically surprised. "I had been told you were a formidable adversary, but I must confess I find myself rather disappointed. Considering my source, however, I suppose it is not surprising. Pettigrew is not the most… reliable of informants, although he is uniquely capable of finding a mere thirteen year old a challenging opponent."

Harry remained silent, refusing to let himself be baited despite the almost irresistible temptation. The coppery tang of blood in his mouth made him want to vomit, and he closed his eyes, trying to hold it back.

He just had to keep hold of his temper and his fear for a few more minutes, he reminded himself sternly. Then Severus and the Headmaster would be here, and he could let himself go of these necessary restraints.

And then Thane would pay for the touches and insinuations and insults, for what he had doubtless done to more innocents than Harry cared to think about. And most of all, he would pay for what he had done to Severus. The satisfaction and anticipation that accompanied Harry’s knowledge of his approaching revenge almost drowned out his fear.

Thane was just gearing up for another speech when Harry felt a firmer mental contact.

// _Harry, we’re here._ // Harry suppressed a sigh of relief at Severus’ long-anticipated statement. // _Do you still have your wand?_ // 

// _Yes,_ // he replied, holding himself back from reaching for it automatically at the knowledge of what was to come.

// _Albus will restrain the other Death Eaters,_ // Severus informed him curtly. // _I’ll take Thane. Don’t do anything for the moment. Just be ready, because he might be protected._ // There was a momentary hesitation, then a quiet, // _It will be all right, Harry._ //

// _Okay._ // Harry didn’t start arguing about not being allowed to take part in his own rescue. He understood that any aggressive action from him before the Death Eaters were dealt with would only ruin his chances of getting out unharmed. An unoccupied part of his brain wondered if Severus’ thought processes were beginning to affect his, or if he was just starting to grow up. He wasn’t sure if either of those would be a good thing.

// _I know,_ // he added, and he almost believed it.

// _Ready?_ // Severus’ question wrenched him once more back into reality, and his immediate problems.

// _Yes._ // Harry slipped his hand surreptitiously into his pocket, curling it around his wand. He felt the comforting weight of the length of holly in his hand, and relaxed a fraction.

// _Right._ // A hint of anticipation flavoured Severus’ tone a mere second before all hell broke loose. At least, that was what it seemed like to Harry, who was taken almost as much by surprise as the others in the clearing despite the warning.

The entire circle of Death Eaters dropped unconscious to the ground without even enough time to make a noise. Harry gaped at this demonstration of Dumbledore’s power and skill, barely noticing that an object slipped from the hand of the one Thane had questioned earlier, and vanished perhaps half a minute after it hit the ground. A streak of silver sparks flew towards Thane, who flicked his wand up just in time to deflect it; he promptly cast a shielding charm around himself and reached for Harry. Harry moved instinctively, dropping to the ground and rolling away just before the man could grab him. 

There was a rustle among the bushes surrounding the clearing. Thane spun away to face the source of the sound. A few seconds later, Severus stepped apparently from the air, Harry’s Cloak dropping away from him. Harry pulled himself to his feet now that Thane’s attention was distracted. He wondered why Severus hadn’t kept it on, used the advantage it would have given him.

"Snape," Thane said, unmistakeable relief colouring his voice.

"Yes," Severus replied coolly, stepping over a fallen body.

"Help me."

"I’m afraid I can’t do that." The professor was halfway to Thane now, and the Death Eater’s attention was completely fixed on him, consternation clear.

"What do you mean? Help me to take the boy and we will be our Lord’s most favoured servants," he said slowly and clearly, as if attempting to explain the obvious to an idiot.

"No," Severus said simply, in a quiet voice that cut through the sounds of near-silent breathing and the rustle of leaves that were the only other noises in the clearing.

Thane’s eyes widened. "You’re…"

"Yes."

The Death Eater’s mouth opened and closed, seemingly completely dumbfounded by this revelation, forgetful of his now perilous situation. Almost involuntarily, Harry found himself moving stealthily behind Thane, taking advantage of his distraction.  With a rock he'd encountered during his scramble across the ground, he cracked the Death Eater sharply over the head.

Thane collapsed in a heap at Harry’s feet, and Severus blinked at him now that the Death Eater’s body no longer obscured his view. "Well, that was… unique," he said dryly. 

"Mm." Harry’s attention was fixed on the unconscious man at his feet, his face announcing that he was deep in contemplation.

"Harry? What are you thinking?" Worry crept back into Severus’ expression as he felt Harry close off the link between them.

Harry drew his wand from his pocket. "That I have to do something. After what he did to you… what he would have done to me." He paused for a long moment, steeling himself. He licked his lips nervously.

"Avada…" he forced out through a suddenly dry mouth, feeling magic build and tense inside him.

"Harry, don’t! Please…" That word, from Severus, almost shocked him out of the necessary concentration.

"Harry!" That was Dumbledore’s voice, but he didn’t let it distract him either.

"… Kedavra," he finished, feeling the magic coil through his body and spurt out through his wand.

The all too well-known flash of green light drowned the sunlight that flooded the clearing.

Harry tumbled to the ground almost atop the body of the first man he had ever killed.


	17. Chapter 17

_… We are not peers,  
So to be lovers;_

When Harry woke, he realised that he was in the hospital wing. He had spent so much time in it over the years that he could recognise it after only the barest of looks around. The smell alone was enough, actually, especially when accompanied by the faint sounds of Madam Pomfrey puttering in her office with bottles and other equipment.

Registering that there was someone in the chair beside the bed, he turned his head cautiously. He half-expected to see Severus there, although he would really have expected the sense of ‘presence’ to be stronger if it was him. Instead, he found the Headmaster watching him intently. Harry told himself firmly that he wasn’t really disappointed, or hurt, that Severus hadn’t wanted to stay with him despite Harry having done it for him.

"Ah, Harry. Good to see you awake," the old wizard said in a tightly controlled, obviously relieved tone. 

"Mm," said Harry faintly. He didn’t quite feel up to speaking yet, especially if he had to make full, coherent sentences. Just the small movement he’d needed to make to look over at Dumbledore had made him aware of a positively titanic headache. The Headmaster’s voice, though quiet, had only made it worse. Harry tried to make his breathing as shallow as possible – his chest hurt, too. In fact, he ached all over.

"I suppose you’ll want to know what happened?" Dumbledore asked, lowering his voice even more as he seemed to realise Harry’s discomfort. It helped a little, but Harry could still hear the other sounds – the crackle of the fire, the clanking of the matron’s equipment – and they all seemed far louder than they should really have been.

"Er, yes," he replied, as quietly as he could manage, trying to move his head as little as he could.

"Poppy will be along shortly to give you a Pain-killing Potion for that," said Dumbledore, reading the tension on Harry’s face correctly. After another close look at him, as if judging if he was well enough to hear the explanation, he continued. "As for the events of yesterday…"

Harry was for once glad the Headmaster had read his mind. But… "Yesterday?" he asked, sitting up slightly and forgetting to moderate his tone in his sheer surprise. He’d been unconscious for more than a day? The light flooding in through the windows showed that it was late afternoon, almost evening actually, considering the season. He had automatically assumed that it was merely later on Saturday.

Whimpering slightly at the effect of his unwary exclamation, Harry firmly resolved to speak quietly for the rest of the day, no matter what other surprises were in store. He forced himself to relax back into the soft grasp of the pillow, which cradled his aching head, easing the pain slightly.

Dumbledore nodded in response, the gold threads on his hat glinting as they caught the fading afternoon light. "You collapsed after you cast the curse on Thane. I requested assistance from the Ministry to take the captured Death Eaters into custody, while Severus brought you back here so that Poppy could take a look at you. However, she couldn’t find anything really wrong with you that would explain your collapse. I must confess that I had suspected that would be the case." His eyes were fixed intently on Harry, and they bore no hint of their usual levity to disguise the close scrutiny.

"What did…" It took far too much effort to get out just those two words. Harry hoped the Headmaster would once more understand what he was trying to ask so that he wouldn’t have to exhaust himself trying to complete the sentence. He wasn’t sure if the answers he’d get would be worth it. Exhaustion felt awfully close right now, and he’d woken up barely five minutes ago. He wondered what on earth he’d managed to do to himself. 

"Rest assured, Harry, I have no intention of telling the Ministry of exactly how Thane met his end. They may suspect, but they won’t ask, and I certainly won’t offer them that information. We may be grateful that the Death Eaters had the clearing so well warded. Nothing that went on there was detectable beyond its confines." Well, that wasn’t  _quite_  what he’d wanted to find out, but it was a huge relief to know that he wasn’t going to Azkaban for what he’d done the day before.

However, Dumbledore’s statement brought back to him exactly what it was he  _had_  done. Harry thought he should have felt much more horrified and guilty by the realisation of his actions, of what they meant. He had  _killed_  someone, after all, and he didn’t feel nearly as bad as he knew he ought to.

Maybe it was because the man had so clearly deserved it. He’d deserved it for what he’d done to Severus, if for no other reason. And there were no doubt many other reasons that Harry knew nothing of, although he could all too easily imagine them.

Or maybe it was because of what he’d wanted to do to Harry. He  _really_ hadn’t liked the implications of what Thane had said before Severus and the Headmaster arrived. Either way, he wasn’t sorry that Thane was dead, and he wasn’t terribly sorry that he’d been the one to end his life. That he had ended a life… while it wasn’t comfortable at all, to say the least, he’d grown very accomplished lately at avoiding things he didn’t want to think about.

He really wasn’t looking forward to what Severus would say, though.

"I suspect that you had very good reasons for your actions. He was the one responsible for Severus’ injuries that night, wasn’t he?" continued Dumbledore, outwardly seeming unaware of Harry’s wandering thoughts.

Harry didn’t have to ask what night. He wasn’t even particularly unsettled that the Headmaster had followed his thoughts yet again, even to such an extent. "Um, yes," he answered. "But what did I…"

"Of course. The reason for your collapse," Dumbledore interrupted his hesitant, irrationally tiring sentence. "Your mother’s sacrifice protects you from the Killing Curse. The protection is a part of you, and is of course symbolised by your scar. You were aware of all of this already, I know.

"It is not merely a physical protection, however, but a mental one too, ingrained in your magic as well as your body. Thus, when you cast that particular spell, your magic in essence revolted against it. A sort of allergic reaction, if you will, and its severity caused your collapse." He hesitated a moment, then said in an almost apologetic tone, "I should, perhaps, have told you of this before, but I had not thought you would need to use it so soon."

That implied he’d thought Harry would need to use it at some point, but Harry simply didn’t have the energy needed to pursue that particular thought just then. He did, however, make a mental note to find out more later on, when he was feeling a bit more human. And when his head didn’t feel like it was about to implode.

"I’ll leave you to rest now," said Dumbledore, as if on cue. He rose as he saw Madam Pomfrey approaching. "You’ll stay here overnight, of course, but I think you should be fit for classes tomorrow."

Harry didn’t argue. He felt  _horrid_ , and the thought of moving made him shudder. "Ron, Hermione? Severus?" he asked instead. He’d almost forgotten to ask about them, what with the realisation of what he’d done, and the revelation Dumbledore had offered.

"They’re all perfectly fine. The Death Eaters were only interested in you, and wanted to remain as unobtrusive as possible. I will of course inform your friends that you have regained consciousness, and are allowed visitors. No doubt they will call on you in the evening. Now, let Poppy give you the Potion, then get some rest." Harry was relieved to notice that the twinkle was firmly back in the Headmaster’s eyes – it was downright unnerving to see the old wizard so serious - but the command was unmistakable.

The effort required for the short conversation had almost completely exhausted him, and he was happy to comply with the Headmaster’s order. Bare moments after Madam Pomfrey administered the Pain-killing Potion and finally freed him of the pain, he snuggled under the heavy, comforting covers, and went straight to sleep.

Severus arrived a few hours later, to find Harry still sleeping. He sat there for quite some time, his gaze resting on the boy’s relaxed face above the covers pulled up to his chin. It seemed strange to Severus that to his searching look Harry’s features appeared much the same as they had on Friday; skin slightly tanned from hours on the Quidditch pitch, if faintly drawn with pain, dark, unruly hair and lightning bolt scar half hidden under the slightly too long fringe. The faintest hint of youthful facial hair shadowing his upper lip and chin showed that the boy had not shaved for some time, and no doubt, his eyes would be the same clear green when they opened.

Yet this, now, was the face of a killer, as his own had been for the last twenty years. It startled him when he realised that Harry was younger than he had been when he had first killed. He had done it out of necessity, that first time, to prove the strength of ‘his’ desire to join the Death Eaters, to show that he truly wanted to be one of them. It had been necessary, too, every time after that, although every one left another scar on his conscience.

And Harry? What were his reasons? That was one question he needed answered, and he suspected Harry did as well. There was no real way to tell without speaking to the boy, though. He had been shut out quite effectively since just before Harry had made his decision in the clearing.

When Harry opened his eyes again, he noted that the curtains had been closed, no doubt indicating that it had finally grown dark outside. He also immediately registered the presence of Severus in the visitors’ chair. This time he knew exactly who it was. For a few moments, though, he didn’t turn his head to greet him. He couldn’t quite summon up the nerve to look at him. He couldn’t bear the thought that he might see rejection, or revulsion in the man’s face.  

It was obvious the man knew he was awake, but wasn't about to speak.  Harry's headache had abated somewhat, so summoning up the necessary courage, not looking at Severus, he managed a quiet, "Do you hate me?"  The question was more mental than vocal, soft and uncertain.

"I could ask the same question." On the surface it was a bare statement of fact, but the undertones held many of the same uncertainties as Harry's own voice had. It appeared that they were about to have one of the conversations they had both been avoiding for so long, and neither of them was at ease with the idea.

"I don’t think I  _could_  hate you," said Harry, after far too long a pause.

Severus aimed for 'impassive' as he replied, "You’d be surprised what magic will allow." He rather thought he’d missed by an unexpectedly large amount.

"I didn’t mean because of the bond," the boy said, half into his pillow, before he finally turned to face him. Their eyes met for the first time since just before Harry had killed Thane.

Harry’s eyes were just as green as Severus had remembered, but not quite as clear as he’d anticipated. Despite the certainty and lack of self-reproach Harry exhibited, there was at least a part of him that regretted his action, and it showed clearly to someone who knew him as well as Severus now did. Severus didn’t know whether to be glad that Harry had not changed so much, or saddened at the knowledge of how much Harry’s actions would hurt him, however much he had believed it necessary.

"Why did you do it, Harry?"

"Why did you?"

"Because I had to. Do you intend to answer my question?" He put just a hint of sternness into his voice, enough to let the boy know that he would not be happy with continued evasion. 

"Because…" // _Because he would have hurt me. Because he would have hurt everyone else he touched. But mostly, I think, because he hurt you, and he didn’t deserve to live._ //

Well. That was unexpected, although he supposed it shouldn’t really have been. It should have been, if not quite touching, at least flattering, that Harry had been willing to kill, had killed, for what amounted to his honour. And yet Severus found himself strangely chilled by the almost-indifferent tone of the admission, and especially by the last five words.

"Harry…" He had no idea what he was about to say, only that he had to say  _something,_ something that would make the boy realise again just what he’d done that day. Already he seemed to have cast aside the momentary regret of what he’d done.

"I know, Severus. I killed someone. I thought about it, I made the decision, and I did it. But he deserved to die," he repeated, "and I’m willing to live with it. With my choice. I know… that you’ve done similar things…"

"Not quite," Severus said firmly. He had done it because it was the only choice he could live with. Harry… Harry had discarded his other choices, knowing that he had them.

"Close enough," Harry replied with a little shrug. "And I’m even willing to live with that. The question is, are you?"

No, that wasn’t the question at all, but it was a good enough one for the moment. Good enough that he couldn’t answer it right away, and that meant he couldn’t keep asking the questions he wanted to ask.

"I should go," he said instead. "I told your friends that they could see you once I’d finished and they’re doubtless waiting outside impatiently."

"Okay. See you in class?" Harry asked uncertainly, more than a little unsure of his welcome.

"Yes." Severus didn’t allow even the faintest hint of the slightly teasing response he would have given almost automatically. Would have given, if Thane had still been alive.


	18. Chapter 18

_… and I own, and grieve,_

Harry was released from the infirmary the next day. His friends were naturally happy to see him well and – outwardly, at least - unharmed by his experience. They also seemed more resolved than ever not to let him out of their sight. Nothing Harry said could make them change their minds. He just hoped they’d let him go to tutoring alone.

He was able to fill in some of the gaps in the story Dumbledore had given them without giving away too much of what had really happened two days ago. He had told Severus he was not distressed or guilt-ridden because of what he had done, and it was true.

Yet somehow he didn’t want anyone else to know about it. He knew they would think less of him because of it, even if Severus didn’t seem to, despite his obvious unhappiness with what Harry had done. But then, his other friends hadn’t seen, or done, nearly as much as his bond-mate, and he didn’t want them to look at him with fear or distaste in their eyes. He knew they’d never say anything, or even show it if they could help it, but it would change how they saw him. Enough had changed in his life recently that he didn’t want anything else to change just yet.

Harry had gone down to the dungeons for his lesson as usual the day after Madam Pomfrey had let him go. However, Severus had told him that there wouldn’t be any more lessons for a while, since the exams were finished and it didn’t seem like he needed urgent help in any particular area. On the other hand, he had assured Harry that they would resume the tutoring sessions after the holidays, which he found oddly relieving. 

Harry didn’t particularly feel like pushing Severus on the issue. He had largely stopped thinking about what he had done, and what Severus had done, and whether their actions made them more or less alike, and what it would do to their relationship, and even if it really mattered at all. It was too much, and also, strangely, too little to think about, since he’d realised it didn’t affect his feelings much either way.

Then again, that didn’t mean he didn’t have lots of other concerns to bother him. There still remained what seemed, to him, like hundreds of unresolved issues between him and Severus. Still, at least they had not made a return to the hostility of Harry’s first few years. Neither had they gone back to the cool refusal to admit even the existence of the other of earlier that year, which had been almost worse, in his opinion.

They got their exam results two weeks before the end of term. It turned out that Harry had passed comfortably, which was one load off his mind – which only left him with a dozen more. Hermione, as usual, had been top of the year in almost everything, and Ron too had done decently. All in all, a very satisfactory year, in that respect if nothing else.

School ended as usual at the beginning of July. After the end of term Feast – Gryffindor had won the House Cup yet again, and Severus had not appeared pleased – Harry went down to the dungeons to speak to the man. Just one visit couldn’t possibly be pushing it too far, he thought to himself. After all, they were still supposed to be friends. You were supposed to say goodbye to your friends if you weren’t going to see them for two months. The reasoning almost convinced him.

He followed the little ‘arrow’ in his mind until he found Severus in his office. The door was slightly ajar, and Harry poked his head round to see if it was safe to enter. Severus was shuffling through some papers, squinting hard at each one before setting it aside, although Harry couldn’t imagine what might be on them that might make them worthy of such an intense gaze. After all, it wasn’t like there was any marking for the professor to be doing on the night before all the students left, and it had to be a bit early to be going over lesson plans, even for  _him_. Harry decided there was probably no harm in indulging his curiosity by asking, however, and he might as well do what he had come down to do at the same time. He knocked gently on the heavy door, pushing it open slightly more with a bit of effort.

"Are you busy?" he asked quietly and a little hesitantly. He lingered uneasily in the doorway as he waited for the response. He didn’t want to take the chance that Severus would be offended by his intrusion if he just walked in and made himself at home. He really hoped the man wouldn’t send him away, though. He didn’t know if he’d be able to get up the courage to come down here again later on that evening, and in the morning he’d be leaving for Sirius and Remus’ house. His house too, as they continually told him, although that thought always felt slightly odd to him.

The man looked up from his examination of the papers at the sound of Harry’s voice, and even gave him a slight, welcoming, smile. "Not particularly," he said, his eyes fixed on Harry, a slight question in them, "I’m just looking through some research notes I may need over the holiday." He laid the papers in question aside carefully, shuffling them into place absently so that the edges lined up perfectly before he put a paperweight on top. "Is there something I can help you with, Harry?"

"Um, no. Not really anything special. I just wanted to say goodbye," replied Harry. He remained uncertainly in the doorway in the absence of any indication as to his welcome or lack thereof.

"Ah, yes, of course, you’re leaving tomorrow." Severus made the gesture that Harry had come to recognise as representing the order to ‘Come in and sit down, before I hex you for hovering in such an inane manner.’ Harry obeyed with alacrity, settling into one of the chairs in front of the desk. It wasn’t nearly as comfortable as ‘his’ one in the professor’s rooms.

"You’ll be returning to your godfather’s house for the holidays?" Severus sounded genuinely interested, and Harry somehow found himself answering with more than the simple ‘Yes’ that was probably the expected response.

"For most of it. Sirius says he’s got something – some trip - planned for next month, but he hasn’t decided where he wants to go yet. Honestly, I think he’s just trying to make up for the fact that he had to move around so much before Wormtail was captured. He’s decided to travel as much as he can while making it clear that this time it’s by choice. And doing it in as much luxury as possible."

"I see," said Severus. He was clearly amused by this insight into his old nemesis’ mind. However, his tone showed that while he might ‘see’, he didn’t really understand it at all.

"Anyway," Harry said. He knew he was rambling. "Yes, I’ll be at Sirius’ for the next month or so, but I don’t know where I’ll be after that. He hasn’t told me anything, you see. I’ll let you know where I am, though."

Severus glanced down at the papers in front of him, lifted the paperweight and shifted the top one slightly into a better position, before looking back at Harry. "I’d appreciate it."

Harry blinked. He hadn’t expected Severus to actually  _say_  anything like that, though his first question had sort of indicated he felt that way, and Harry had rather hoped for it. "Um," he said, temporarily misplacing his vocabulary in his surprise.

"Come now, Harry. I thought you’d know by now that  _friends_  like to know where they can find each other." It was surprisingly good to have the teasing back, the feeling of comfort in the man’s company. Harry caught himself again. Comfortable in his company, and glad of it, despite everything that had happened? Yes, he decided. He was, and glad of it besides. It was  _really_ confusing to think that you might love a man you didn’t want to spend any time with.

"I’ll… I’ll owl you or something," he replied, suddenly realising that he’d been quiet rather longer than Severus’ comment warranted. The man’s eyebrow rose quizzically, which usually meant that Harry was missing something obvious. Harry gave him a blank look in response.

// _Forgetting something, Harry?_ // His amusement was even more noticeable in that method of communication.

"Oh." Harry felt like an idiot, but then again he hadn’t exactly expected Severus to  _want_ that sort of contact. Especially not now, not after his reaction to what Harry had done. Maybe he was starting to feel comfortable with Harry again now. Maybe he wanted to feel comfortable as much as Harry did. Harry told himself to stop imagining impossible things. There was hopeful, and then there was utter refusal to admit reality.

"I will be here this summer, as I usually am," Severus offered. Harry recognised the tone as ‘don’t ask’, but he wanted to know. He wasn’t a Gryffindor for nothing. 

"Why?" 

"There’s no reason for me to go back to my house." The temperature of Severus’ voice had dropped about ten degrees, and Harry decided abruptly that it wasn’t really the time to push his luck by asking for more details. But it was definitely something to consider asking about when they had more time. And maybe when he was feeling a little less attached to his life, too.

"Oh." Maybe it had something to do with the dream he’d had – almost a year ago now, he realised – about the man’s initiation into the Death Eaters. He wondered if there was something he could, or should, say, but couldn’t come up with anything even vaguely appropriate.

"I should go and finish packing, I guess," he said instead, getting up. He tried not to fidget from foot to foot as he stood in front of Severus’ desk. "I’ll see you in September, I suppose?" Somehow it came out as a question, although he had intended it as a simple statement.

"Of course. Have a good holiday, Harry." Slight warmth had crept back into Severus’ intonation and expression, and Harry was obscurely gladdened that he hadn’t put his foot in it irretrievably once more.

"Er, you too," he said with a shy smile.

He got a real smile in return, and a ‘thank you’, as he left.

As Harry had told Severus, he was at Sirius’ for the first part of the holiday. He spent it in a similar manner to the way he’d spent the last summer – doing pretty much what he wanted while Remus and his godfather were away on Dumbledore’s or the Order’s business.  Again, they had apologised for leaving him alone, and had promised to return in time for his birthday. Harry had told them, in all honesty, that he didn't mind in the slightest having the house to himself for a while.

He enjoyed himself vastly. Considering that the fact that he had his own space would have been – was - enough to ensure his happiness, having a whole house to himself was utterly glorious. Even in Hogwarts, he had to share, and their room changed every year. Despite having spent the last three holidays in this house, in his own room, it was still new enough to be a pure, much-appreciated luxury. He was thankful all over again every time he woke up in his bed, in his room, with his clothes in his wardrobe, his things on the shelves and his pictures on the wall.

After the first few days, he didn’t spend the whole of every day doing nothing, as tempting as the thought was. Honestly, he was quite bored of that after four days of it. Instead, with the aid of Sirius’ cookery books, he learned to cook a greater variety of meals than he had done at the Dursleys’. He discovered that it could be lots of fun when you had some idea what you were doing and were doing it for yourself. Not, as before, making it up as you went along and hoping desperately that it would be edible, knowing that you’d only get to eat half a plate, if you were really lucky. On the other hand, there were a few – more than a few, at first - occasions where he had to scrap his attempts. Then, as he had done last summer, he drew on the generous supplies Sirius had left him, magically stored or in the Muggle-style fridge and freezer.

Sirius’ whole house was like that, actually, a mixture of Muggle and wizardly conveniences that Remus had told him was nothing like any other house he’d ever seen. Harry could believe  _that_  easily.

Harry also worked his way through the other half of Sirius’ collection of cheap thrillers and murder mysteries. Thinking about Severus, he got a sheaf of parchment and tried to draw something, an idea he’d had but somehow never got round to trying. He had a few attempts at it. However, he gave up that particular idea after he tried to get Hedwig to pose for him, but when he showed her his achievement, she flew off in fear.

He used the other side of the parchment to try writing a story, and that went slightly better, he thought. Slightly, but not much. Momentarily discouraged, he gave up on creativity for the time being, and dug out his mother’s diaries instead. He read over them again, picking up new bits of information and things that interested him. In particular, he noticed all sorts of interesting details about Severus that he hadn’t before.

One morning, as he was sitting in the garden a few days before he turned seventeen, an owl that he didn’t recognise flew up to him. It didn’t wait for a response, or even to be paid, merely dropped a package lightly at his feet, and flew off again.

Harry picked it up, realising that it was a parcel wrapped in brown paper with a card taped to it. His first birthday present of the year, he assumed. The parcel was squarish, and comparatively thin, tightly packaged. Harry was at a loss as to figuring out what it could contain. However, the handwriting that addressed the card to him was familiar – after all, he’d seen it enough times on his potions homework, not to mention on the card he’d got from Severus at Christmas. Despite his overwhelming curiosity, he only allowed himself to open the card, finding a fairly standard greeting. Then he took the present upstairs to open on his birthday, setting the card up on the desk as he had done with the last.


	19. Chapter 19

_That givers of such gifts as mine are, must  
Be counted with the ungenerous._

Just like last year, Harry was woken at a ridiculously early hour of the morning by a quite horrifyingly cheerful godfather, with matching werewolf. This time, he managed, rather astonishingly in his opinion,  _not_  to growl at them to go away and let him sleep in peace. He was also, to his immense gratitude, not surprised by any new spells, bindings or other unpleasantness, courtesy of his mother or of anyone else.  

Sirius had arranged a small party for this occasion, rather than the massive gathering - massive at least by Harry’s standards if not by Sirius’ own - which he had held at Christmas. So Harry spent the day with Ron, Hermione, some of his other Gryffindor year-mates and the twins, not doing anything in particular apart from eating rather too much, particularly of birthday cake. All in all, it was an enjoyable, if not terribly profitable, day.

Although Harry desperately wanted to know just what Severus had sent him, he had no time to open the present before the guests arrived. He wasn’t so eager to know that he was willing to open it in front of them with the rest of his gifts, not when he thought about having to answer the inevitable questions that would follow. Most of the others, including Sirius, didn’t even know about the bond yet, and he could just imagine what his godfather’s reaction to finding out about it would be. No present was worth that. Still, it didn’t stop him wondering, as he had for the last several days.

It was past midnight by the time Harry made it back to his room. All the guests had gone home and Sirius and Remus had gone to bed, so Harry was finally assured of enough privacy to open the present without being inopportunely interrupted. As he ripped away the flimsy paper covering, he unearthed four items that he recognised as being old-fashioned twelve-inch records, as well as an envelope presumably containing a letter explaining them.

He examined the records briefly, noting the artists and album titles in passing. Then he laid them aside in favour of opening the letter or rather, as he found on reading it, the note.

 

_Dear Harry,_ (it read)

_Your mother introduced me to these; in fact gave me some. You might recognise them – they are the more battered ones. I understand they are difficult to find now. I thought that you might enjoy them. I am certain you will find the lyrics worthy of note.  
Happy Birthday once again,_

_Severus_

 

Well. That was certainly much friendlier than either of the cards had been. Not a surname in sight, for one thing. And as for the suggestion that the records were from his collection, ones that he liked… Ones that Harry’s mother had given him, and so, by implication, valued.

If nothing else, it was certainly food for thought. Harry pondered the implications as he carefully set the records aside. He’d have to listen to them at some point when Sirius and Remus weren’t around, so that he wouldn’t have to explain their sudden appearance.

When Severus entered his living room two days after Harry’s birthday, he was not in a terribly good mood. Mornings were never his favourite time of day, and his research had not been going nearly as well as he had wanted, or even expected. He was using up ingredients at a hideous rate, although at least the school and Ministry provided most of them, so it didn’t have to come out of his own pocket. However, at this rate he’d need to make a trip to Diagon Alley in the next week, much sooner than he’d anticipated, and that would mean more time wasted. At least, he thought, sniffing the air gently, the room held a smell that promised caffeine. After the first cup of coffee, perhaps things would look better. He wasn’t exactly optimistic, though.

Picking up the breakfast tray that had been left on a side table, he was surprised to notice the envelope beside his plate. He generally ate in his room in the summer - when he was the only teacher resident at the school, there was no point whatsoever in going up to the Great Hall for meals. Even when Albus and Minerva were there, on the rare occasions they managed to persuade him to take a meal with them they ate in Albus' rooms.

After eating quickly, Severus settled down in his chair with a cup of black coffee. He blew gently across the surface of the hot liquid, inhaling the scent luxuriously as he examined the envelope. He smiled slightly as he recognised Harry’s sprawling handwriting. It seemed he was about to discover if his conjectures about the boy’s taste in music had been correct. That was of course assuming that his godfather owned a record player so Harry would have been able to listen to them. However, knowing Black’s love of all things Muggle and complicated while at school, that shouldn’t have been an issue.

Setting his empty cup on the coffee table on his right, Severus summoned a letter-opener from his desk and deftly slit the envelope, extracting the single sheet of paper it contained. Unfolding the letter, he skimmed it for the essentials. He discovered that yes, he had been correct about what Harry would like, that Harry had particularly enjoyed the Rolling Stones album (Did Severus have any more music by them he wouldn’t mind lending Harry when he got back to school?) and that he’d like to speak to him if he had some time to spare.

// _Harry?_ // Severus thought a little ‘louder’ than usual, in the direction that the bond informed him the boy could be found.

// _Yes. You got my letter then?_ // Harry seemed not at all surprised by the interruption. Perfectly logical, considering that he’d requested it. In fact, Severus rather thought he detected a pleased note in Harry’s mental voice. He had to suppress his own pleasure, not entirely unexpected, at the thought that the boy was glad to hear from him.

// _I did. I’m pleased that you liked the present._ // Severus knew that it would come across with complete sincerity, and that he couldn’t do anything about it. Quite surprisingly, he didn’t mind. Much. 

// _I liked it a lot. Thank you so much._ // Gratitude, more pleasure and a general feeling of happiness flavoured Harry’s thought. Severus refrained from commenting on them, but it made him obscurely glad to know that he had contributed to those feelings. It even contented him that Harry was happy with his godfather. He wondered if Harry’s mood was affecting his.

// _You’re very welcome,//_ he replied instead.// _I had them lying around, and I thought you might get more use out of them._ //

Harry, perhaps uncharacteristically, made no comment on Severus’ denigration of the gift, rather choosing to ask, // _How come I never saw your record player?_ //

// _You haven’t seen all of my rooms._ // Severus replied, then kicked himself mentally for allowing in the undertones that had flavoured it. He hoped that the boy wouldn’t pick up on them, but suspected that it was a vain hope.

There was a sense of thoughtfulness from Harry, implying that he had indeed noticed the unintended nuances. Yet he said nothing, seemingly again willing to let it go for the moment.

There was a brief pause, while they pondered that. Both of them savoured the contact, even though Severus would not admit it even under the greatest pressure, and Harry still hadn’t decided what to feel about everything that had happened.

// _You wanted to speak to me about something?_ // reminded Severus.

// _Um, yes. Just to say, well, thank you. For the present, you know._ // Harry seemed to realise he was babbling, and cut himself off, changing the subject suddenly. // _And that Sirius has decided that we should go to Cyprus for this holiday. We’re going to leave on the second, and we’ll be there for three weeks, according to him._ //

// _Ah. I’m sure you’ll enjoy it._ // Severus had never been there, but he thought he recalled one of his friends having visited in fourth year. They had said nothing but good things about the place, if he remembered rightly.// _Thank you for letting me know,_ // he added.

// _No problem. I mean, I didn’t even have to write a letter or bother Hedwig, so really, no problem at all!_ // Harry said cheerily.  

Severus allowed his amusement to ‘show’, and didn’t mention that Harry  _had_  just written a letter. He wasn’t going to object to having a chance to speak to Harry again, even though it was another thing he would deny vehemently if he was asked about it.

// _So how’s your holiday been?_ // Harry continued, seemingly for once oblivious to Severus’ thoughts.

// _Singularly unprofitable and not at all entertaining._ // he replied tartly. He let more than a little of his disgust at the slow progress of his research into his mental tone, knowing that Harry would appreciate it.

The sparkle of laughter. // _I should have guessed._ //

// _Indeed you should._ // He should not let the conversation continue much longer, lest he start losing control of his thoughts again. // _Doubtless you have better things to be doing with your precious holiday time. I’ll let you go,_ // he said, hoping he didn’t show his reluctance.

// _Uhm, okay. Bye._ // Harry sounded nearly as averse to ending their conversation as Severus felt.

Severus prepared to break the contact nonetheless. // _Goodbye,_ // he said firmly.

Little else of event occurred to Severus that summer. He did finally start to make some progress on his research, though. Harry went to Cyprus, and came safely back, to Severus’ relief. He hadn’t exactly expected Voldemort to try anything so soon after the last attempt, but it was rather… unsettling… to know, and feel, that Harry was so far away. They spoke briefly after Harry returned, but Sirius was again intent on spending time with his godson, and Harry had to leave suddenly to be entertained by him.

Late on the evening of the second of September, a few days before the start of term, Severus felt a familiar burning on his left arm. He had felt nothing there for the last few months, and the unexpected summons worried him. He didn’t think his escape from his last punishment had been noted, or that his role in Thane’s death and the capture of the Death Eaters that had accompanied him had been realised. Either situation would have had some repercussions long before this. However, Voldemort, for some reason of his own, might just have been attempting to lull him into a sense of false security. Now, he would find out for certain.

His heart beating just a touch faster in apprehension he could not completely suppress, he despatched a quick mental note to Harry as he left. After all, hiding his actions from the boy hadn’t seemed to be at all helpful so far. Putting up a shield without warning would just have alerted Harry to an unusual situation. This time, after the last meeting and Thane’s death, he might have been tempted to involve himself more directly. Perhaps, therefore, it was time to try something different.  

This meeting was to be held outdoors, in a small wood on the Malfoy estate that Severus knew well. It had played host to many similar gatherings before. As he Apparated into the meeting location, he set the shield in place, hoping that Harry would understand the need for the precaution. No, Severus knew that Harry would, and he hated the boy’s knowledge of what he had experienced that gave him that certainty.

When Severus rose after making his obeisance, Voldemort gave him a sharp look. ‘I hope you have learned your lesson,’ he said, but nothing more. No mention of Severus’ unusual escape from Thane’s punishment was made. It confirmed that the man had not told Voldemort of it, probably from fear of being assigned a similar punishment himself.

Severus allowed himself to breathe a sigh of relief, before he began to wonder why the meeting  _had_  been called. And if he would be required to do something unforgivable once more. The location eased his mind somewhat though, as it was usually used for Death Eater rituals. Those tended in general to be far easier on his conscience than the alternatives, although that was really a relative thing considering his company.

The purpose of the meeting, it seemed, was to initiate Thane’s successor. A young man had been chosen this time, one who had been seeking entrance into the Death Eater circle for some time. In fact, Severus had begun to suspect that unless an opening came up in the near future, one of the other Death Eaters might find themselves made into one.

Draco Malfoy, who had celebrated his seventeenth birthday just a few months before, had never been one to wait longer than absolutely necessary for what he wanted. An admirable Slytherin trait, perhaps, but that family had always taken it beyond the bounds of good sense.

Severus wasted no time in pitying the boy; the man, it would have to be now. Neither did he allow himself to regret the fact that it was one of his Slytherins, his pupil for one more year, who was now taking the Dark Mark. One man could not save an entire Houseful of children, and Severus had done all he could while crippled by his conflicting roles.

When all was said and done, it had been the boy’s choice, as it had been of all the others. Even his own, as he admitted when he was completely honest with himself. It was not as if Voldemort was hard-pressed to find more mature candidates to fill Thane’s place. Severus knew also that Lucius Malfoy, whatever his faults, would have preferred his son to have at least finished his schooling before he took this place. He had spoken to Severus personally about it last year, but it seemed Draco had insisted on taking this opportunity.  

No, feeling any sympathy for Draco would certainly be a waste of energy Severus could spend better in working out how best to combat the presence of a full Death Eater in Harry’s year. Especially since Severus knew Voldemort and the Death Eater in question so well. There would surely be greater danger to Harry in this last year at Hogwarts than in any other before, whether they formulated a plan together, or whether Draco acted alone, seeking to advance himself by showing initiative. Voldemort would certainly not want Harry to live long enough to come into his full power at the end of his seventeenth year.

The ceremony took little time to complete, and Severus had nothing to do except stand there and look attentive. Draco took the marking much better than he remembered doing himself, but then the young man wanted this so much more than he ever had. Once the meeting that followed the initiation had finished, Severus Apparated to Hogsmeade and made his way back to the welcome safety of Hogwarts.

After a minute to re-establish his poise after the lurch of Apparition, he remembered to tell Harry that he had returned safely. Severus assured him that all had gone well, he was merely tired, and excused himself before making for his bed. He felt completely drained, as always after a summons. At least this time he hadn’t been hurt, or required to make a potion for some horrendous purpose, he thought to himself as he pulled the covers up around himself, more for the feeling of security than for the warmth they provided.  


	20. Chapter 20

_… Out, alas!_     _  
I will not soil thy purple with my dust;_

Harry found it more than a little hard to believe that he was packing to go back to Hogwarts for his last year of school. That in less than a year he would have finished his schooling, and most probably would have decided what to do with the rest of his life. In June he would be a full wizard, would leave Hogwarts for good. It scared him, a little. Maybe more than a little, if he was really being honest with himself. He brooded as he moved about the room, only using a corner of his mind to decide what to take and what to leave.

He kind of wished there was someone he could talk to about it. Sirius and Remus would probably be very sympathetic, but they wouldn’t understand what on earth he was anxious about. After all, they had made it clear that they’d offer him a home as long as he wanted it. The problem was, he wanted to do something for himself, by his own choice, for once. He frowned slightly, moving over to the wardrobe to begin packing his clothes.

Hermione and Ron probably had enough problems of their own to deal with, and didn’t need any of his worries about his future. They had their own decisions to make. He couldn’t possibly bother the Headmaster with the problem. It wasn’t nearly important enough for that, he thought as he folded up his last set of robes and pushed it into the trunk. He was starting to run out of space. It was a good thing there wasn’t too much left to pack. Besides, he couldn’t help thinking of what Severus had told him before they’d explained the bond to him. He didn’t know that he wanted to put himself even further into Dumbledore’s hands than he already was.

And Severus… well, there had been a time when Harry would have thought him the perfect person to talk to, but things changed so fast, and so constantly, between them. A few friendly conversations couldn’t erase all of the uncertainty and worry of the last year, the things that they still had left to sort through, that they hadn’t even begun to face yet.

Although the man’s warning him before he’d gone off to that meeting two days ago was definitely a promising sign. Things were finally slowly going back to normal. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad an idea to speak to him, in a couple of months or so. He wasn’t even surprised any more that he thought of their friendship as ‘normal’.

As Harry laid the last shirt into his trunk and closed it, he scanned the room to ensure that he hadn’t forgotten anything. Satisfied with his packing, he locked the trunk, and manoeuvred it downstairs with the aid of a spell. Then he went to find Sirius – messing about in the kitchen, predictably - and tell him that he was ready to leave for London in the morning.  

Harry, Sirius and Remus Floo’d into Diagon Alley at eight the next morning. They had breakfast at the Leaky Cauldron, and made it to King’s Cross just barely in time to catch the Hogwarts train. As Harry caught up with his friends in their usual carriage, he thought he glimpsed Draco peering in through the window in the carriage door. The other seventh-year disappeared from view as Harry looked up, however, leaving him with nothing more than a hint of blond hair and pale skin at the corner of his vision.

The train reached Hogwarts in the late evening, as usual. Harry gave Severus a quick smile as he walked into the Great Hall and saw the man sitting in his usual place at the Head Table. He wanted to visit him afterwards, but knew that there wasn’t really any way to do it. How would he explain to Dean, Seamus and Neville that he was just nipping down to the dungeons to visit Professor Snape? Severus wouldn’t approve of the other option – an after bedtime visit, with the help of the Invisibility Cloak.

The next day, however, he went down to the dungeon after dinner. He reached the now very familiar door, and paused in front of it. He felt like he was waiting for something, but he wasn’t immediately sure just what it was.

After a moment or two, he spoke the word that found its way into his mind and tapped a particular spot on the guardian painting three times in quick succession while the resident portrait looked on with interest. Then Harry pushed the heavy door open and entered Severus’ quarters. He found their occupant in his usual chair in the sitting room, looking blankly into the fire, with a mug of tea growing cold in his hands.

"Welcome back," Severus said without looking up, as Harry slid into his own seat. "How was your holiday?"

Harry was all too eager to elaborate, despite Severus’ obvious distraction and the fact that the man already knew all of the essentials and many of the details. "It was great!" he concluded. Suddenly remembering his manners, he politely asked, "How about yours?"

"It remained unprofitable, although I must admit that the mere fact that there were no students made it slightly more pleasant than term-time." He still hadn’t looked up from his contemplation of the flames, Harry noted, and the crabbiness in the reply sounded more like habit than anything else.  

"Oh," Harry replied. There was a long, not entirely uncomfortable pause. Harry discovered all over again just how fascinating firelight could make Severus’ face. He pulled his thoughts away from that topic, and decided that he might as well tell the man what he had realised that morning.

"It’s been a year, you know." He tossed it out indifferently, as if it were a casual observation.

Now he was fixed by that familiar sharp glance, but all the man said, after a moment’s scrutiny, was, "I know."

"An interesting year, I think," Harry said. He prodded gently at the bond in the hope that it would give him some indication of what Severus was thinking and feeling.

"Yes." Severus smiled slightly at him and returned his attention to the fireplace, lifting the mug to take a sip of its contents. He grimaced and lowered it again almost immediately. Definitely cold, then. Harry wondered how long Severus had been sitting there brooding before he’d arrived.

"Are you planning to talk to me at all tonight, or are you just trying to scare me off with your fearsome use of monosyllables?" he asked finally, tired of waiting for the man to make the first move.

Another smile, this one a touch more self-deprecating, as Severus put the mug down on the table beside his chair. "I’m sorry, I’ve just had a lot to think about in the past few days."

"Oh? Would this have anything to do with the meeting?" Harry asked without bothering to hide his interest. He realised he was fidgeting, and clasped his hands tightly in his lap. He wished that Severus had offered him a drink. At least it would have given him something to do with his hands.

"Yes." A pensive, almost haunted expression and matching thought flickered across Severus’ face and the link they shared.

"Care to share?" Harry asked hopefully, trying not to expect too much.  

"Not at the moment." // _Maybe, once I’ve thought about it a bit._ //

"Well, okay, I suppose." Harry gave in with as much grace as he could. Maybe was more than he’d really expected. "But do you mind if we talk about something else then?" he continued. "I mean, it seems a bit silly if I just sit here while you don’t say anything. Or I could go…"

"No, that won’t be necessary." Harry supposed that was all he would get in the way of an ‘I like your company’ for the moment at least. He could have wished for more, but it was better than nothing.

Harry couldn’t quite put his finger on why, but he felt completely comfortable in Severus’ rooms, with his company, once again. Finally. And, if what he was sensing was any indication, the other man felt the same way too. It seemed rather odd that it had happened over the holidays, when they had seen so little of each other, but there it was. Perhaps it had been the gift, or the occasional conversations they’d had afterwards.

Or perhaps, Harry thought, it was simply that Severus had informed him before he went off to the meeting. The action had carried a consideration for him and an implication of belief in his maturity that he had been waiting an awfully long time for from the man.

At any rate, despite the fact that there was still obviously something bothering Severus, at least Harry no longer felt constantly aware of having to watch what he said. He didn’t feel as if their friendship teetered permanently on the edge of a cliff, and a wrong word from him, or even a wrong thought, would tip them abruptly over it.

As Severus at long last offered him a drink, and stood to fetch it, Harry leaned back into the embrace of his chair. He stroked the soft material of the armrest and allowed himself to come perilously close to luxuriating in the feeling of being comfortable and welcome here again.

Almost two weeks later, on a Friday evening, Harry found himself sitting in the same familiar chair, waiting for Severus to return to his rooms. He half-turned as he heard the door open, and noticed the lack of surprise on the man’s face as he entered. He’d been expected. Harry wondered absently why the realisation of the bond’s uses still surprised him.

"I let myself in, I hope you don’t mind, but I didn’t want to interrupt you in a lesson…" he began. He was about to explain some more, but he was smoothly interrupted.

"That’s alright. I did give you the password, and I know your habit of making yourself at home when you have it, regardless of my feelings on the matter." The familiar teasing was still newly resumed enough to make Harry feel a surge of relief when he heard it. A surge of something else too, and for once, for the first time in a very long while, he let himself just  _feel_  it.

"So how was it? You don’t look like it was that much of a disaster." Harry smiled slightly as Severus settled himself into his preferred seat as if it was a substitute for heaven itself.

"No-one was killed, that is about all I can say in today’s favour," the professor said wearily, almost disappearing into the deep shadow of the chair’s wings. "Would you mind summoning the house-elves for me? I feel the need for the comfort of caffeine."

Harry’s smile became an all-out smirk. "I read your mind," he joked, producing his wand. "Accio tea tray."

The effect of Severus’ lifted eyebrow was lost in the surprise that plastered itself across his face. Harry kept smirking as he caught the tray from the air, released the warming spell on it, and poured the tea for them both. The comforting smell filled the air, and Severus took a deep breath. 

"Well," said Harry, handing the man his mug, "it  _has_  been more than a year, and if nothing else, I’ve learnt that you do have an extreme fondness for tea, especially after you’ve been teaching."

Severus accepted the cup. "I can see that," he replied, in a tone that Harry would have called weak from anyone else. Harry found it a surprisingly good feeling that _something_ he had done had not been anticipated.  

After Severus had taken a sip, and regained as much of his composure as he usually had around Harry when they were being friendly, he asked "So what does bring you down here?"

"Well, actually there’s this problem that Professor Flitwick set us…"

That led to a rather intense discussion of Sealing Charms, and when it was appropriate to use them, and when not to use them at all costs. The discussion lasted at least an hour, and grew quite heated at times. That was another thing it was good to have back – the intense discussions that just barely skirted the edge of argument, but without the danger of disintegrating into one. It made learning so much more enjoyable.

"Does that help at all?" asked Severus finally, when it seemed as if all relevant arguments had been discussed.

"Actually, yes. Thanks."

"That’s what I’m here for." The man half-closed his eyes and shuddered melodramatically, making Harry smile again. "How I have come down in the world," he lamented.

"Poor Severus, relegated to such a menial position," Harry teased back.

"So glad you understand." Severus gave him a positively evil smile as he stood. "And I have some other menial tasks to be doing."

"Oh?"

"Yes. I finally received the shipment of remba leaves that the supplier has been promising me for the last month. That means I can make the Anti-fever Solution that Poppy’s been pestering me for. Imagine my joy."

"Oh." Harry opened his mouth, closed it, gave the man a speculative look, and opened it again. "Can I help?" His voice held an edge of hesitation.  

Severus gave him a long, equally considering one. Finally, he replied, "I don’t see why not. Come on then."

Harry just remembered to replace the warming spell on the tea tray before he followed him into the workroom.

This time, when they returned after completing the brewing, Severus poured the tea. Harry wondered if the action had been a conscious decision on the man’s part. If the echo of events almost seven months ago, subtly changed, was an indication that just maybe they could at long last move on from there. If, perhaps, they could try again.

They sat for a little while, each absorbed in their own thoughts, and the silence was comfortable, and comforting. The feeling of the other’s presence was nearly as warming to them both as the warmth of the fire, and the gently steaming mugs in their hands.

At length Harry shifted, put down his empty mug, and spoke, quietly, but without the slightest hint of uncertainty. "You know, I still do…" he broke off, now deliberately imitating the last time, as if he could erase its consequences with this new attempt.

// _… love you._ //

This time there was no almost desperate denial from Severus, no physical advance from Harry. This time, the man gave him another contemplative look, leaning forward slightly to examine Harry’s face more closely, his own close to expressionless.

"Perhaps you do," he said finally, calmly.

"I just thought you should know," Harry replied, his voice just as matter of fact.  

Severus nodded, and leaned back once more, giving him a faintly wistful half-smile. "You should probably go now. It’s almost time for dinner, and if I remember rightly, you have a rather full day tomorrow."

"I do." Harry stood, and picking up his bag from beside his chair slung it over one shoulder. This time, as he left, he felt no need to ask when he would be welcome in Severus’ rooms again.  


	21. Chapter 21

_Nor breathe my poison on thy Venice-glass,_

Harry was used to his dreams by now, even ones that most other people would see as being extraordinarily vivid, would find worthy of note, would probably mention to their friends. He was even used to dreams that were obviously more than ‘simply’ dreams.

But that night, they felt subtly different to anything he had felt before. They were certainly not ordinary dreams, full of their casual peculiarities and unpredictable yet unremarkable changes. Nor were they the type that the bond had generally created so far, full of traumatic predictions of their future, or revelations he didn’t want to face.

No, this one was most definitely different.

_Severus walked into the clearing, feeling himself subtly relax as he passed through the last set of wards. Only the first day of the year, the students not even arrived yet, and already he felt the need to retreat to this, his sanctuary. He seated himself on the conveniently placed log at the centre of the clearing, and shut his eyes. His senses filled with the rustle of dry autumn leaves, the smell of wet earth after the morning’s rain, the graze of the light breeze across the unprotected skin of his face. He took a deep breath, held it, let it out, and repeated the cycle._

_An uncounted number of breaths later, Severus looked up sharply as he suddenly realised that he was no longer alone. The intruder was obviously attempting to move quietly. However, his ears, absorbing every sound nearby without always registering them, had easily caught the sound of footsteps crunching on the fallen leaves that liberally scattered the forest floor. He had been deep in thought – close to brooding, actually – but not so engrossed that he could fail to notice such an unexpected interruption. There were very few people who would dare to disturb him here, and fewer still whose presence would give only that late warning._

_He smiled slightly. Unless his long-established wards around this place had failed – and there were naturally further wards in place to let him know if that happened - there was only one person it could be. It was a most pleasant surprise, although he generally had little use for surprises. In his experience, they tended to be things that could get you killed, or at the very least, injured. This though, was wholly good._

_//_ Harry? _// Severus called out._

_He caught a sense of chagrin, leavened with a certain amount of amusement as Harry picked up what had given him away._

//Damn. And to think I used to do this kind of thing for a living. _// Severus could feel Harry shaking his head at his own clumsiness, and smiled, knowing that the other man would feel it._

 _//_ I think we’ve found the reason why you gave it up, _// he teased._

 _//_ Maybe. Or maybe the almost getting killed every single day for three years had something to do with it, _// Harry retorted, his tone abruptly losing some of its lightness._

_Giving up being an Auror was still something of a sore point with him, though the decision had been made more than half a decade ago now. Severus let the topic slide for the moment, but he knew that they’d need to have a talk about it soon. He hadn’t realised it still rankled so much. He made a mental note not to let it go for too much longer._

_Severus’ smile grew more pronounced as the expected figure stepped into the clearing. Harry walked across to sit beside him on the log without hesitation. Severus had long ago enlarged the smooth spot at its middle. It was comfortable enough for two, as long as they didn’t mind being in very close proximity. Neither of them ever had thus far. He hoped they never would, not that he would ever admit to that._

_"Hey," the younger man said, leaning over to place a chaste kiss at the corner of the other’s mouth. He moved a little closer, so they were pressed hip to hip, and rested his head on Severus’ shoulder with the ease of long familiarity. //_ Warm, _// he commented, half to himself_

_Severus moved his arm to rest around Harry’s waist, but only because it was just too uncomfortable to leave it trapped between their bodies like it had been. "What brings you back here so early?" he asked, curling his hand comfortably around Harry’s hip-bone._

_"Your last owl said that you wouldn’t be free until next week." Harry’s head was a familiar weight in the hollow of his shoulder, as soothing as the clearing itself. A few stray strands of the other man’s short, perpetually dishevelled black hair insinuated themselves over Severus’ high collar, tickling slightly at the junction of neck and head. He shook his head slightly, but not enough to risk disturbing Harry._

_"That sounds awfully like a complaint," Harry replied quietly. It was so peaceful here, so very easy to forget that not all that far away, there was a school full of people. A host of children would soon be arriving for another new year, and there would be a Sorting Feast. One that the Headmistress would certainly make him attend tonight, since he was here._

_As he was leaning quite heavily on Severus’ chest, Harry could feel the slight change in the man’s breathing as he registered Harry’s comment. Depending on his mood, it might be preparatory either to a refutation of the accusation or to withering Harry with sarcasm. He forestalled it quickly._

_"No, I know. I managed to finish my project a bit earlier than planned," he explained. "Actually, I managed to rope Christopher and Ellen into helping me finish it, since they’d done theirs already. I told them I had an unexpected commitment." He grinned and tilted his head slightly, brushing another kiss against the underside of his lover’s jaw. Longish, greying, eternally greasy hair bestowed its own return caress on his forehead, smoothing across the beginnings of lines._

_"Maybe I should have stayed there, though," Harry added in a thoughtful voice. "It’s an awful lot colder up here."_

_This time, Severus refrained from comment. Since he wasn’t rising to the bait, Harry continued, hoping that he’d get some reaction soon. Not that Severus’ warmth all along his side and the arm curled around him weren’t nice, but he had something else in mind, considering how long it had been since they last saw each other._

_"I am starting to feel a little hurt. I haven’t even had a proper kiss yet," he complained._

_Harry didn’t have to lift his head to know that Severus was smiling. He could feel it perfectly well, in his mind and in the slight shift in the body in such close contact with his own. "As I have often told you before," the other man said, with tartness Harry knew he didn’t exactly mean, "if you want something from me, you will have to take it. I am not in the habit of further spoiling overly-indulged young men."_

_Harry grinned happily. He’d missed this just as much as the touches. "Ah yes, I’d forgotten that. Sorry."_

_As he lifted his head, Severus shifted slightly, turning to face him. It made it almost absurdly simple for Harry to lean forwards and brush their lips together. Automatically, he was sure to be extremely careful of both pairs of glasses, a lesson they’d both learnt well years ago. All he’d originally intended was the initial light contact, the barest touch of skin to skin, but the hunger that manifested itself within a matter of seconds didn’t quite take them by surprise – they’d experienced this too many times before._

//I did miss you, _// Severus assured Harry after a while. Their mouths clung together, eagerly reacquainting themselves with the taste and feel of the other, savouring the sensation._

//I know. It’s good to be reminded though. _// Harry nipped gently at the corner of the older man’s mouth._

_Both would have smiled again, had their mouths not been so well occupied already. The scent of autumn surrounded them, fallen leaves, wet earth, and the promise of rebirth._

Severus and Harry both smiled in their sleep. The man woke for a moment, reaching down to tug a stray sheet back into place before pushing his head back into the soft embrace of his pillow. Harry burrowed deeper under the covers, feeling their warmth somehow lacking, and settled gently back into his dream after the brief interruption.  

_Harry woke slowly, to the feeling of glorious warmth surrounding him. As he came a little closer to full awareness, he registered the sensation of arms holding him close to a long, slender body, and soft breaths ruffling his hair. They were things that he was just beginning to get used to, and he took an enormous amount of satisfaction in them. He smiled into the other man’s chest, rubbing his nose gently against smooth, almost hairless skin as he revelled in the comfort and pleasure of it all. Then he set about waking his new lover in the most enjoyable of ways._

_Well, Harry at least thought it was extremely enjoyable. Severus inevitably hated waking up, no matter how it was done. However, Harry had so far been able to change his mind after a short while. He’d never known he was so good at persuasion before._

_Wriggling slightly, Harry gained himself some space to move without breaking out of the circle of Severus’ arms. He used it to shift cautiously up in the bed so that they faced each other on the pillow. Then he leaned forward, brushing a kiss to the slightly creased forehead, moving down a little to press one between the closed eyes. He bestowed another on the tip of the distinctive nose, gave a light brush to lips slightly parted. Severus didn’t – quite – snore, but it was a close thing. Unable to resist the temptation, Harry gave the mouth one more kiss, slightly harder, before he continued moving down._

_He sighed lightly, savouring the contact of skin on skin, and the warmth that radiated so generously from the other man. He still found it slightly strange that so usually restrained a man gave off so much energy this close, but he was grateful for it. He relished, too, the security provided by their blankets, and the way Severus pressed close to him as if craving more touch even while asleep. Both of them longed for this kind of contact, this warmth, although the other man rarely admitted it. Harry could feel contentment permeate his whole being as he luxuriated in the moment. He could tell from the feeling of the bond that, even while still sleeping, Severus felt much the same way._

_Having explored Severus’ torso briefly, Harry returned to his mouth for a more thorough kiss. After a second or two, he felt the man beginning to awaken properly, and start to respond, and pulled away slightly._

_"Morning," Severus muttered ungraciously, without opening his eyes. He shivered slightly in a sudden chill, and reached down automatically to tug back the thick woollen blanket, which had slipped down during Harry’s earlier explorations. He pulled it right up under his chin without any regard for the convenience of the young man who was still nestled right up against him._

_Severus knew that Harry was smiling despite being unable to see the expression. Experience would tell him that, even if the feel of the bond or the body pressed against him had not already. He refused to open his eyes yet. That would mean admitting he was awake, and he wasn’t ready to do that for a while. Besides, he could tell what was going on, and how Harry was reacting, perfectly well without them, so there wasn’t any point at all._

_"Morning," replied his excruciatingly awake lover, adding a brief kiss, barely more than a peck on his cheek, to the day’s collection._

_Severus finally gave in and opened his eyes slowly. He cracked his eyelashes apart slightly, letting in the barest glimmer of light, despite the knowledge that the light level would not be too great – they were in a dungeon, after all. He peered warily up at Harry through the protection of his eyelashes, judging the amount of foreboding he needed to feel from the expression on the younger man’s face._

_"What do I have to do today?" he said to those mirth-filled eyes, trying very hard not to whine. Harry would surely be even more amused if he did, and Severus didn’t cope well with being teased this early in the day. He needed caffeine before he could tolerate being made fun of._

_"Nothing much. It’s Saturday, remember?" Harry’s tone was more than a little mischievous._

_Severus always had a little trouble remembering who he was when he had just woken up, let alone what day it was. Harry knew that very well, and therefore of course brought it up constantly. "Of course I remember," Severus grumped. "And since I don’t have to teach today, I’m going back to sleep." He suited his actions to the words by closing his eyes tightly again before turning over and snuggling his face into the pillow._

_"Are you sure you want to do that?" the irritating young man beside him asked, adding, "I sort of had something else in mind for today."_

_That tone of voice, at such an hour of the morning, ought to be illegal, especially on a Saturday, Severus thought rather muzzily. The thought didn’t keep him from retaliating as Harry deserved, though. Blankets were only one way of keeping warm, after all, and sometimes – **sometimes**  –_  _he thought they might be slightly over-rated._

When Severus woke in the morning, a half-smile still curving his lips, he realised that he felt uncharacteristically content. Unlike most of his normal dreams, he could remember every detail of this one as he lay in bed attempting to find the courage to throw back the covers and face the dungeon’s customary early-morning cold. The dream showed no signs of fading as he began to prepare for the day, either. He had the vaguely unsettling feeling that it had been the result of the bond trying in some way to reward them for their actions the previous day. Rewarding Harry for once more daring to take that step, and him for not rejecting it, for maybe even beginning to accept that it was what they both needed. What they both wanted.

He wasn’t sure whether he should be worried by it, but it was at least good to know that the bond didn’t mean a lifetime of nightmares. He had enough fodder for those as it was.  


	22. Chapter 22

_Nor give thee any love… which were unjust_  
 _Beloved, I only love thee! Let it pass._

Harry found himself humming under his breath as he walked around the school the next day, going about his timetabled routine in a far better humour than usual. The sense of contentment and well-being that the dreams last night had instilled in him lingered for the whole day, making him feel wonderfully cheerful and relaxed. Despite the fact that they had been just dreams, they were equally obviously more than ‘just’ that.

They made him feel incredibly hopeful. Made him think that maybe, just maybe, all this would actually work out as he’d barely dared to… dream, for lack of a better word.

They were a promise, he rather suspected. He hoped.

Hermione noticed his good mood, naturally. For once, though, she refrained from pestering him about it, and the reasons behind it. Instead, she just returned his frequent smiles with faintly perplexed ones of her own. Harry thought that maybe his rapid change from miserable and pensive to vaguely normal to outright cheerful had managed to confuse even her. He gave her an impulsive hug when he met her in the library to work on their Arithmancy project in the afternoon, and bewildered her even more.

From the general feeling of the bond, somehow springing into greater awareness, Harry even suspected that Severus, despite being, well,  _Severus_ , for lack of a better word, was experiencing something similar to Harry’s feeling of utter well-being. To Harry, everything today seemed somehow new, and flawless. Of course, nothing he could see in the man’s exterior as he eyed him as usual during meals even hinted at such a thing. Still, Harry hadn’t shared a link with him for more than a year now without learning how to read him at least a little. It was only a little, true, but it was enough to be able to see this.

Even the fact that Malfoy had been acting decidedly oddly since the start of term, and Harry had not the faintest clue why, couldn’t put more than the smallest dent in his good humour. The strange sighting on the train appeared to have been a foreshadowing of their interaction for the last two weeks. Almost every time Harry turned around outside Gryffindor Tower, it seemed like the other seventh-year was just looking away, or disappearing around a corner. Harry almost felt as if he was being stalked.

It was actually beginning to become more than a little annoying, but it didn’t happen quite often enough to make Harry speak to someone else about the whole thing. It wasn’t as if Malfoy  _would_  really be stalking him, after all. It wasn’t his style in the slightest, and Harry couldn’t come up with a good reason for such a change of behaviour. He told himself that it had to be just his imagination. They did still have quite a lot of classes together, and it was reasonable for Malfoy to be using the same corridors as Harry to get between them. Belittling Harry was still one of his favoured past-times, so that could explain the watching. Maybe he was running out of new and interesting things to say, and was on the hunt for more. Merlin knew that Crabbe and Goyle were probably sick to death of Malfoy’s old insults.

And if there was something more sinister going on? Well, Harry knew that he could defend himself now.

Still, he had better, and much more pleasant, things to think about. Like visiting Severus again. And this time, encouraged by the dream, he was prepared to try and move them forward a little more. He rather thought getting Severus to kiss him, rather than a years-old memory, might be a good thing. Actually, he was quite certain of it.

It surprised him, but only a little, that he felt almost no resentment at the memory of their first kiss now. They had both changed so much since that evening, and this time, he thought that there was little that could go wrong. He hoped it, at any rate, and for once everything he was feeling from Severus was encouraging.

He let Severus know he was coming down as he left Charms, his last class of the day.

Severus opened the door for Harry almost before the boy had a chance to knock. He had been expecting this visit for most of the day, had not been able to completely suppress the jump of anticipation when Harry had asked if he was free. As he stepped aside to allow Harry to enter, he didn’t bother trying to hide his smile of welcome.

As the day went by, Severus had realised that the dreams of the previous night hadn’t just improved his mood. That would have been quite ghastly enough by itself, and he’d found it quite hard to berate his students properly all day. At least, he’d told himself, he wasn’t humming, as he had distinctly felt Harry doing from time to time.  

He had also found that he had an even greater awareness of Harry. It was, thankfully, not the way it had been after last Christmas, where they’d been almost unable to separate their identities, where every fleeting thought that rose to the surface of either mind had been unwillingly shared. Rather, it was as if the information the bond constantly gave him was more accessible to his conscious mind. It probably applied to Harry too, and if the truth was told, Severus didn’t particularly feel like trying to conceal himself as completely as he had always been used to doing.

After all, if there was one person in the world he could afford to trust now, it was Harry. And while trust still didn’t come at all easily to him, as it never had, he was beginning to find it almost natural to contemplate trusting Harry. He felt that perhaps it should have worried, or maybe even scared, him much more than it did.

Doubtless all of this was another example of the actions of the bond, but there was no point in explaining everything like that. There was far too much interference from it, and if he was to start trying to separate his own thoughts, he would be second-guessing everything he did.

He didn’t listen to the part of his mind that suspected that even if the bond was suddenly removed now, he would still like the boy.

He could not, in all honesty, bring himself to care very much, as he walked into the kitchen to fetch the obligatory tea, leaving Harry to settle himself into his usual place.

Harry picked up one of the books on the low table beside his chair to pass the time with while he waited for Severus to return from the kitchen. He turned it over in his hands, feeling the smooth leather, soft under his fingertips, and the gilded indentations that revealed the title and editor. ‘Collected Essays’ it said, informatively, and he didn’t recognise the editor’s name. Opening it to a random page, Harry found himself in the middle of an essay about the effects of the more benevolent types of blood magic on the practitioner and the subjects. It seemed Severus had been doing research again.

Within moments, he was absorbed in what the writer had to say about bonds in general, and blood-bonds in particular.

Harry laid the book down as a sense of movement, of  _nearing_ , through the bond told him that the man had finished making the tea and was returning. The bond had seemed much more sensitive since last night – he’d certainly never been able to pinpoint Severus’ location so precisely before. A familiar mug was handed to him a few moments later, and he decided not to mention what he’d read in the book for the time being. He had other, more important, things he wanted to discuss.

"So, about yesterday," Harry began. He took a sip from his mug and found the tea slightly too hot for his liking. Naturally, it was otherwise perfectly tailored to his taste. They’d had an awful lot of cups of tea together since this whole business had started.

He turned the mug in his hands, feeling the warmth soaking through the heavy porcelain –  _warmth, skin, comfort, autumn, hair, blankets, morning, laughter_  - as he looked up at Severus, trying to judge what he was thinking. The bond gave him lots of information, of course, but the man’s face had become an invaluable source of insight too. He blinked away the sudden intense flash of last night’s dreams, pulling his thoughts together again.

"I umm… had some rather enjoyable dreams last night," Harry continued, hoping that he wasn’t going too fast, getting into this too soon. He thought he’d read Severus right, but…

He could ruin this all too easily if he pushed too hard, too early. He bit the inside of his bottom lip nervously as he waited for the man’s response.  _Not again, not again_ , something chanted inside his head.

Severus cradled his mug in his hands, unconsciously mirroring Harry and his relish of the warmth it exuded. The dungeons were no colder than any of the other rooms in Hogwarts – the fire and his generous use of Warming Charms saw to that, especially as he disliked the cold so much - but the physical sensation of heat had always appealed to him.

"As did I," he replied after a minute, lifting his gaze to Harry’s face. "I… would not object to such dreams being repeated."

 _What about making them true?_  Harry almost asked. He just barely managed to hold himself back, catching the question on the very tip of his tongue and pushing it away firmly. He lowered his eyes, hiding behind drinking his tea. It was still too hot, hovering on the edge of scalding his tongue. He drained it anyway and put it down on the table next to him.  

He needn’t have bothered restraining himself so severely. Severus heard it anyway, and wasn’t even offended. "I would not be averse to that either," he replied to the unspoken question, and Harry was almost able to ignore the // _any more_ // that followed fast on the answer’s heels.

"Oh." Harry was, in fact, close to dumbfounded by the admission, so much more easily gained than he had expected it to be. He had thought he would have to do much more, push even harder, to elicit such a response from Severus. It was without a doubt the answer he wanted, though, and something fluttered excitedly in his chest at the implications of the man’s sentence. He couldn’t possibly be reading in more than Severus had intended, not with  _those_  feelings accompanying the statement.

The man smiled at him for the second time that day, and Harry’s breath caught at the simple perfection of it. "I may be stubborn and devious, but I can accept when something is inevitable," Severus said with gentle humour. // _And it was clearly inevitable that we love each other._ // The words strongly implied resentment, but Harry could read the humour and something far more positive than resignation hidden in them.

He could also decipher the love that underlay them, and it made something he rather thought might be pure joy bubble up inside him. He smiled back at Severus, so widely that his face began to ache slightly. It didn’t stop him smiling, though.

And so he stood, and the man opposite stood too, laying aside his mug so that it mirrored Harry’s. They both took the requisite step to bring them face to face and body to body, and made the movements that brought their mouths together, tasting faintly of tea and hope.

Their second kiss was a mutual creation, strangely like and unlike their first, bearing all the warmth of their shared dreams. This time, there were no words in their minds, because they had already said all they really needed to. There were other things between them, but those were banished for this moment. They could wait for this precious while.

And when they finally drew apart after a perfect, eternal time, no names had to be spoken.

This time, Harry smiled, and said "Thank you," after they finally broke for breath. Severus smiled back, and brushed a stray bit of hair out of Harry’s face. He didn’t need to ask for what the thanks were meant. They were for the tea, and the company, and the kiss. They were for making the dream real, if only in this one small way for the time being.

And above all, they were for the warmth and the love that Severus hadn’t quite been able to make himself declare overtly, but knew that Harry understood anyway. He would not have had it any other way. Harry picked up his bag and left, still smiling slightly.  

Severus stood there as Harry slipped out, trailing almost visible joy, relief and love like a cloak. As the door closed behind Harry, Severus lifted a hand to lips still imagining that they could feel the soft pressure of the boy’s… no, the other man’s, it had to be now. The warmth that filled him was achingly familiar, from the past and from the dreams last night. Yet it was better by far, for it was real and it was now.

More even than that, he savoured the feelings broadcast by Harry. Severus could feel him making his way through the school, attempting to make no secret from him of the emotions that matched, and perhaps even surpassed, what Severus now admitted he felt for him.

After some moments, he managed to force himself to move, to walk over to his chair instead of standing there like a love-struck fool. Even if that was, perhaps, what he was. Love-struck at least, he admitted now, if not quite, not any longer, dared he believe, a fool.

Seating himself, sinking into the comfortable shadow, he relished the lingering feeling of what was almost exhilaration. Finally he started to trust that they could make it work, despite all the obstacles and all the reasons why they should not even try. He found himself believing that they could make something great of it, this thing between them.

This… love, so fragile yet filled with hope.


End file.
